Planning Wedding in another State

I'm in a similar boat because we live on the East Coast but are planning a wedding in the Bay Area (where my family is). I've found a few things that helped:

1) Letting vendors know why you're getting married in CA (for me once I say I have family there everything is fine, but if you have a reason you can share with people maybe the vendors will stop being jerks and will take you seriously).

2) Organizing a few trips out to your wedding city to meet with vendors in person, scheduling a few vendor meetings/consultations for each trip.

3) Booking an all-inclusive venue or as all-inclusive as you can get, so that you don't have to worry about catering, set-up, clean-up, etc. when you don't live where your wedding is.

4) Planning in advance - we had a long engagement to help sort out the issues of not living where our wedding is. If you don't have a venue booked soon I might consider picking a new date rather than shooting for an August wedding.

5) Reaching out to vendors over email and then scheduling a phone call or video chat to discuss details. We booked our photographer, DJ, hotel blocks, and HMUA this way (and will meet with them in person, including for HMUA trials, when we're in town as the wedding gets closer).

Hey there, Ashley! That is very frustrating, I’m sorry you’ve been hitting this roadblock.

As Nicole mentioned, would you have any budget to work with a planner to help with the vendor search? It’s possible to find planners that offer professional opinions and advice on searching for vendors and venues, even if you aren’t hiring them full-time. You can create a custom package that gives you the option to pass on services you don’t need while keeping those you do!