How to plan long distance

If at all possible, I would try to make as many decisions as possible prior to moving. Is it within your budget to hire a wedding planner or at least a month of coordinator for the final month prior to the wedding? Or maybe, if you have a mom or sister or someone who would be willing to kind of be your surrogate for certain things like food tastings and stuff like that. Is your fiance moving with you? I'm being presumptuous and assuming they are. If not, can they do a lot of the heavy lifting for the wedding planning? Just as an aside, I planned my wedding while in a doctoral program. We got engaged in March 2018 and I started that fall, with a wedding date of July 2019. We tried to do the bulk of my planning before I started the program. By the time I had my first class, we already had all our major vendors booked. The planning basically went on pause during the semester and then we resumed planning during breaks. My husband was supportive, but we wanted to make all the decisions together and the date was far enough out to accommodate it. I say this to just keep in mind that you may honestly be so busy during grad school that you don't have time to even think about wedding planning. There are literally times I'm so busy I don't have time to eat until like 8pm.

My sister is a chief resident at a hospital, starting her second year. She was supposed to be getting married December, and thankfully we didn’t get far enough in planning because she was super busy being on call. She’s got me helping her a little bit every week when she brings it up because I know how busy she is and I don’t want to overwhelm her with a lot of information. You should try to find someone you trust like a sibling, parent, or even your FH if they’re staying state side for this. My sister has told me it’s been helpful having me.

Do you have a friend or family that can help you in the area? Is your future spouse joining you? There’s definitely ways to make it work planning over distance! You just may have to be a bit more communicative with vendors, but honestly shouldn’t be an issue. I’ve been planning from six hours away, so obviously not international but poses some similar issues and I haven’t had any problems at all. Most vendors don’t even know where we’re located until we schedule meetings

I planned my wedding from across the country. I picked a venue and made decor to leave with parents before I moved. I shipped my dress to my moh before the wedding and brought it back home as a carry on. I booked all my vendors online. I traveled once to do some things in person like a cake tasting and hair trial, but if I couldn’t travel to do that everything still would have turned out fine.

We're planning a wedding in NY from MD. I'd suggest booking a venue before you leave, and maybe a caterer if you can, so you can do a tasting. Otherwise, planning from afar isn't too difficult.

If you can find more all inclusive venues that would help you do less

Hi Sara! That’s a lot of important things going on at the same time, but I definitely think it’s doable!

You already have 95% of your wedding details figured out already, right? If so I think you can make it work!