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Ways to Save on Destination Wedding Accommodations
There are many ways that you, and your wedding guests, can save on destination wedding accommodations. If you choose to have your wedding in the “off season” (a less popular time of year to travel to your destination), you can often save almost half of the cost of full rates. Booking large amounts of rooms at the same time can also save you money - you or your wedding planner can negotiate a group rate for your accommodations, making the cost per room less for your guests. Another way to lower your accommodation costs is to have wedding guests stay at a cheaper (but still nice) hotel or resort that's nearby. If you want to stay at the four star resort you're holding your wedding at, you can choose to have your wedding guests stay at the two or three star hotel next door. It's also nice to give your guests a choice of rooms; that way, they can decide how much they want to pay for their accommodations. Remember, your destination wedding is a vacation for them as well!
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Destination Weddings Tip: Good Destinations for Weddings in Mexico
Mexico offers a number of advantages for a destination wedding. It's affordable, it's easily accessible from the United States and Canada, and the vast country offers a number of resort, historic, and urban wedding sites. Among the most popular destinations for weddings in Mexico are:
Cancun. This popular resort city on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula features dozens of luxury, beachfront hotels as well as designer shopping, a plethora of restaurants, and a vibrant nightclub scene. Couples can choose a traditional beachfront wedding or something a little different, like getting married near the historic Mayan ruins that dot this area.
Mexico City. Mexico's capital city is a sprawling metropolis, the second largest in the world. It also offers all of the benefits of a large, cosmopolitan city, including fine restaurants, shopping galore, and a wide variety of wedding sites. Plus: Mexico City is generally more affordable than comparable cities in the United States or Europe.
Cabo San Lucas. Located at the southern tip of the Baja Peninsula, in western Mexico, Cabo is a favorite of beachlovers, divers and snorkelers, and fishing enthusiasts. It's a relaxed fishing village, turned world-class resort, and still retains much of its quiet, unhurried charm. The rugged coastline, especially "El Arco" (the Arch) at the entrance of Cabo's harbor, makes a dramatic backdrop to any wedding ceremony.
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Choosing a Destination Wedding Coordinator
If you decide that using a destination wedding coordinator is the right idea for you, there are some easy ways to find a coordinator that you will feel comfortable with. One of the first things you can do is ask around. If you know other couples who got married at your destination, or if you find someone on-line who did, ask which coordinator they used. Another way to get a wedding coordinator referral is through a destination wedding planner/travel agent. These sites help to book travel plans and stays at your destination, and they can also put you in contact with wedding planners in your area. For example, if you're planning a Costa Rica wedding, a travel company specializing in destination weddings can help you to book your trip as well as find a wedding planner in Costa Rica. A third way to find a wedding planner for your destination is to look at bridal planner associations, and get referrals that way. A good one to use is the Association for Wedding Professionals International (http://www.afwpi.com/).
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Destination Weddings Tip: Planning a Pacific Coast Mexico Wedding
Although the Caribbean coast of Mexico is lovely, some of the country's best -- and most picturesque -- resorts are located on the Pacific Coast. These seaside towns range from quiet fishing villages to cosmopolitan cities. Below are a few of Mexico's top Pacific resorts:
Acapulco. Located in the middle of Mexico's Pacific coast is an ideal spot for a Mexico Wedding. Acapulco was a thriving resort before newer resorts, like Cancun, were even considered. The city is known for its crescent beach, its daring cliff divers, and its romantic open-air restaurants with a view of the harbor.
Puerto Vallarta. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton fell in love with this quiet fishing town in the 1960s while filming "The Night of the Iguana" there ... and the world followed them. Today, Puerto Vallarta retains something of its original ambiance, but has added luxury resorts along its wide stretches of beach.
Mazatlan. A bustling city as well as a beach resort, Mazatlan combines beach pursuits with the dining, shopping, and sightseeing options that only a big city can offer.
Cabo San Lucas. Located at the tip of Mexico's Baja Peninsula, Cabo San Lucas was only known to fishermen and wealthy yacht-owners until the region was opened up to tourism in the 1970s by the construction of a large airport and the Trans-Baja Highway. Today, the resort is still a fishing capital, but also boasts a vibrant nightlife, excellent golf courses, and a warm, arid climate.
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Ways to Have a Celebrity Wedding With a Low Budget
Although many brides and grooms would love to have the kind of extravaganza that celebrities can afford for their weddings, few couples can match that kind of expense account. To recreate the celebrity wedding feel, you can emulate their ceremonies and style for a cheaper price. Window shop for your celebrity wedding gown on different sites such as the Knot and then find a similar one by a lower-end designer. Often, you can get a gown that's close to looking like the real thing for less than a tenth of the price. You can look at pictures of celebrity wedding cakes, and then ask your local baker for a quote on how much it would cost to recreate it (using different ingredients and less embellishments can lower the price).
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Destination Weddings Tip: What to Expect from Destination Wedding Planners
Destination wedding planners can help alleviate much of the stress of planning a destination wedding. Similar to travel agents, they work with thousands of properties around the world and can help coordinate all of the details involved with a destination wedding--airfare, accommodations, marriage license paperwork, reception arrangements, and guests' flights and hotel accommodations.
Registering with a destination wedding planner is easy. Most companies require a small "commitment deposit," that is applicable toward your wedding expenses. This is just to show that you are serious about planning a destination wedding and that you intend to use that company before the planner goes to hours of work putting together a package just for you.
Destination wedding planners know the language of group hotel and banquet contracts. They can steer you away from clauses that are not to your advantage, such as a common hotel practice of requiring the host to pay for rooms that are booked, but later canceled.
Another benefit of using a destination wedding company, such as Destination Weddings.com, is that most such companies will set up a special wedding Web site for you, where you can post photographs, details of the wedding, and wedding registry information.
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Destination Weddings in the Bahamas
The islands of the Bahamas are known for their exotic beauty and unique culture. These attributes can definitely carry over to your wedding and give you many lasting memories. Planning a Bahamas wedding starts with a residency requirement of one day; you can't get married in the Bahamas on the same day you arrive. Legally, you must also provide photo ID, sign a declaration with the US Consul at the American Embassy, and provide documentation of when you arrived in the Bahamas. The Bahamas actually has its own state-run complimentary Weddings and Honeymoon Unit of the Ministry of Tourism, which can help you to plan your wedding here, and many resorts also provide help with planning.
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Destination Weddings Tip: Planning a Cancun Wedding
Cancun, unlike most other resorts, was designed as a vacation paradise. The town, located at the upper end of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, had just three full-time residents in 1970 when the Mexican government decided to promote Cancun as an international resort. Today, the initial nine hotels have grown to a collection of 140, a number of which are all-inclusive properties. More than four million visitors fly into Cancun each year.
Those traveling to Cancun will find long stretches of white sand beach; more than 380 restaurants featuring all types of cuisine; a vibrant "dance 'til dawn" nightlife; and affordable shopping. For those interested in the history and culture of the region, the Mayan ruins at Tulum and Chichen-Itza make a fascinating day trip.
The weather in Cancun is predictably warm and humid most of the year, with occasional, short-lived afternoon showers. The resort does lie in the heart of Hurricane Alley, however, and wedding couples are well-advised to avoid booking their trip during the period from mid-August to mid-October.
As with any destination wedding, it's a good idea to enlist the services of a destination wedding specialist to assist you with all of the details. Planning any wedding can be stressful and planning one hundreds (or thousands) of miles from home only adds to that feeling. Working with someone, such as the wedding planners at Destination Weddings.com, can help to make planning the perfect Cancun wedding much easier. Plus: their services are free.
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Booking a Location for a Destination Wedding
When booking a location for your destination wedding, there are many things you must consider. If you're planning to have a wedding at a resort, make sure that you find out whether or not the ceremony is included in your resort stay, where you can get married on the resort, and who can attend (if children are welcome). If you're planning on a different sort of location, such as a hotel or a chapel, make sure you contact the site to find out particulars such as the size of the location (how many guests can be present) and the facilities available. Find out about details such as décor, catering (in-house, or can you use your own), and even seemingly obvious things such as parking. It may be a bit harder to judge whether your chosen location is perfect from long distance, so it can help to have a “local” in the area scout the sites for you, or better yet, hire a local wedding planner.
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Celebrity Wedding Dresses for Less
One of the ways that any bride can emulate a celebrity wedding is by copying a celebrity wedding dress. Vera Wang, Monique Lhuillier and other bridal designers to the stars create beautiful dresses, but their price tags can reach tens of thousands of dollars. One way to purchase celebrity wedding dresses on a budget is to buy copies - often if a dress is very popular, moderately priced designers will copy it for sale to the general public. Or you can take a picture of the dress you want to a seamstress to have it copied for you, at a great discount. Another way is to buy a used wedding dress in a boutique or online. If wearing a dress that someone else already wore isn't your idea of the perfect gown, you can also brave Filene's Basement's annual wedding gown sale, where designer dresses that normally sell for up to $8000 are marked down to prices between $249 and $500.
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