Out of state planning

I'm getting married in a different state than I live in (although, the venue is only an hour and a half away from my current city). I decided to pick and choose what I wanted instead of going all-inclusive mainly to save money. I did a ton of research on here and through Google. I only met a few vendors in person before booking them, but I looked on their reviews/photos/videos before putting deposits down!

I planned my wedding from Maryland and we got married on the beach in Florida. I flew down and picked the vending that included the ceremony and reception (at a hotel). I then chose all local vendors from this site and contacted them by phone to start planning. Luckily I was able to FaceTime a lot of them and also shared Pinterest boards for my vision. My wedding coordinator at the hotel was awesome and really helped. I will say the hard part was getting everything to the venue for the wedding. We had to drive instead of fly because we had so many last minute things. Good luck.

I'm planning a destination wedding for Florida from Kansas City. The only people in Florida where we are getting married is FH's parents. We aren't doing all inclusive because we found it to be more expensive than what we wanted to pay. However, that's not to say it would be in Michigan. I would definitely do as much online research as you can comparing the two options. I would try and knock out as much as you can while you are there in September, that's what we did in July when we went to visit his parents. It's worked out well for us so far, but we also aren't getting to do many trials and are just trusting WW and Google Reviews. Something to consider and good luck!

View Quoted Comment Thanks Jill! Did you ever use yelp reviews on venues? I’m not familiar with google reviews, would you say they are pretty accurate?

View Quoted Comment Thanks Lauren! Did you ever use yelp reviews on venues? I’m not familiar with google reviews, would you say they are pretty accurate?

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I didn't look at yelp too much, but I would imagine it's about the same! So far my google reviews and the reviews I have read on the weddingwire website have been spot on. I found my photographer and hair and make up artist through here, looked on their websites to see their portfolio, and have just trusted the reviews from there. The venue we got to see in person so that wasn't much of an issue and the reception will be at his parent's house (small reception). We contacted a lot of venues for pricing before we went to Florida and then set up tours for while we were there. I would suggest doing something similar to that if you can!

I picked all the vendors online that I could, and then I flew out there to meet with certain vendors for tastings and trials. It was worth the trip in person.

I planned a DE/NJ wedding from IL.
We had the church chosen and were lucky enough to be able to do our premarital stuff here and have the local priest email the confirmation to the church we wed in.
For the reception we chose a Holiday Inn for several reasons, the price was right, it was convenient, and it cut down on the vendors we needed. Though I was able to be in touch with the Baker and florist they used to ensure we got what we wanted.
My biggest struggle was not being able to pop in to talk and say hello.

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I didn't look at Yelp but would imagine it'd be about the same. I, honestly, didn't realize Yelp had reviews for things other than restaurants lol. I looked on my vendor's Facebook reviews as well. So far, all my vendors have been great to work with!