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Kara Williams
Freelance Writer |
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Aspen Times Destination weddings By Kara Williams When I was in the throes of planning my 1999 wedding, and was totally stressed out about nailing down a date and a venue for our ceremony and reception, I was tempted to scrap my dream of a local wedding and escape with my husband-to-be to Hawaii. Wouldn’t it be so much easier to just hire a wedding coordinator to plan the event at a nice resort, invite our immediate family there, show up in bare feet and a short, silky sundress, get hitched, and celebrate with a couple of Mai Tais on the beach at sunset? That sure sounded good to me. I announced our new wedding plans to my fiancé (he didn’t even put up a fight, as he has learned to do when I’m in stressed-out mode), culled through my dozens of bridal magazines for destination wedding advertisements, and sent away for information. By the time the literature started landing in my mailbox from Hawaii a week later, my let’s-get-away-from-it-all wedding idea had fizzled. Though such a wedding would have cost a fraction of a local affair, and our honeymoon would have been built right in, I started thinking about all the friends and family who wouldn’t be able to make it to such a far-away location. I really wanted to share this special occasion with them. Plus, could I handle missing out on wearing the big white dress, walking down the aisle, dancing our first dance, cutting the cake… no way! We ended up having a beautiful wedding ceremony and reception in Aspen and Snowmass Village, and I certainly don’t regret the decision to have it here in one of the loveliest locales in the world. After all, Aspen itself is a popular location for destination weddings, according to Bonnie Kowar, a local wedding coordinator and owner of Creative Weddings. “Aspen is a romantic community. The people who get married here love the mountains and want to be married in a beautiful location,” says Kowar, who helps to arrange about 30 weddings a year, the large majority of which are for out-of-town couples. The reasoning behind a destination wedding The couples that Kowar works with come from such far-flung locales as England, Australia, New York, California, and the South. Most don’t own homes here, but might vacation in Aspen on a regular basis, or they met in town and then moved away. “Nowadays, couples want to express themselves to their family and friends,” says Kowar. “They choose to get married in Aspen because they identify with it; it’s a personal expression of what their lifestyle and values are all about.” Kowar also points out that these days, with friends and family spread out across the country – or even the world, a great percentage have to travel to the wedding location anyway, “so why not have everyone meet in a great location?” My frenzied inclination to “escape” from planning a traditional wedding may another reason why more and more couples today are choosing to get married in a vacation spot, according to Karen Zaruba, a columnist for UltimateWedding.com. “Some may be escaping an unmanageable guest list, escaping the stress of planning a usual wedding, escaping family, escaping expectations…” says Zaruba, who planned her Charleston, S.C. wedding from her home in Ann Arbor, Mich. Destination weddings can be romantic, exotic and exciting, but it may be their reasonable cost that truly attracts couples to this option. Generally, fewer guests are invited to destination weddings, thus, less people to feed and fewer favors to buy. Though the bride and groom have to pay for plane fare to Hawaii, as well as accommodations, the simplest of ceremonies on Maui (officiate, marriage certificate, leis, photographer and photo album) can cost just a few hundred dollars. Some all-inclusive Caribbean resorts throw in a free wedding ceremony if you book your honeymoon there. (Sandals Resorts trademarked the term “WeddingMoon” to describe this phenomenon.) Of course, destination weddings can be just as pricey as your hometown wedding if you choose to have all the traditional bells and whistles, and if all 150 of your invitees decide they would indeed like a Cayman Islands vacation in the middle of February. Disney fairy-tale wedding or oceanside ceremony – no problem, mon With the help of a wedding consultant or hotel wedding coordinator, planning a destination wedding can be a piece of cake. If you’re planning a wedding at a specific hotel or resort, generally the coordinator’s fee is included as part of the total wedding package. Independent consultants like Kowar – who help you book everything from the minister and flowers to the photographer and cake – charge a fee, but being relieved of the hassle of long-distance planning might just be worth the extra cost. Plus, your hired consultant is the person who fixes any problems that come up before, during and even after the celebration. Kowar says that she doesn’t even meet some of her long-distance brides in person until a few days before the wedding – all of the planning can be done via mail, faxes and e-mail. It’s no surprise that the “wedding capital of the world,” Las Vegas, is the most popular place to “wed away from home,” according to Destination Weddings & Honeymoons, a new quarterly magazine. Rounding out the top three choices are the sun-drenched islands of Hawaii and Jamaica. Other Caribbean islands, California Wine Country, Mexico, the South Pacific, Europe, and Orlando, Florida are also popular spots. The Internet is a gold mine for planning destination weddings. Typing “destination weddings” into a few search engines turned up hundreds of resources for stressed-out brides to be. Whether you want to get married in an English castle, on the shores of the Virgin Islands, or atop a hill in the Australian Outback, there is a consultant and/or agency to help you plan the details. Courtesies for your destination wedding guests Generally, guests pay for their own transportation and lodging for a destination wedding. To help them out with their arrangements, sending a “save-the-date” letter is key. “Invitations are supposed to be sent four to six weeks before the event, but that is hardly enough time to buy plane tickets,” says Karen Zaruba on www.ultimatewedding.com. “A friendly little form letter with pertinent info (place and date) will do. If you’ve begun to set up accommodations, include that, too.” For my Aspen wedding, I sent out two newsletters. In one, sent to all potential guests about six months before the wedding, I announced the date and location, listed phone numbers for blocked hotel rooms, and included a map of the valley. In the next, sent to all confirmed guests about a month before the big day, I listed all the fun activities to do in the area – from fly fishing and river rafting to horseback riding and hot-air ballooning. I included phone numbers for different outfitters, as well as babysitting services and our favorite area restaurants. Kowar says that her brides generally plan a whole weekend of events in Aspen: “Their guests have taken the time and made the commitment to travel for the wedding, so the brides want to extend some extra courtesies to show how much they appreciate their guests’ efforts.” In addition to leaving welcome notes and/or gift baskets in the guests’ hotel rooms, brides generally invite all the guests to the rehearsal dinner the night before the wedding (unless budget constraints or the preference for having an intimate gathering take precedence), as well as a brunch the day after the wedding. Zaruba suggests not “overplanning” for visiting guests. “Don’t plan so many get-togethers, family dinners, rehearsal dinners and so on so that your family and friends have no free time.” In the case of destination weddings, “your location can do a lot of the entertaining for you – and you should let it.” For those friends and family who couldn’t make it to your destination wedding (or weren’t invited) consider throwing a hometown reception sometime after you return. It’s a nice way to include those who weren’t there – and it’s a great excuse for another celebration! |