Good morning everybody,
Happy Friday to you. Whenever I come across something interesting I try to share it in a post. We received some new testimonials for our site, from couples that just returned from their DWs, and something caught my eye. Several of them had encountered some type of problem along the way that could have led to BIG problems, but didn't.
Often I get calls from couples that got in over their heads planning a Destination Wedding, and they now want help. That's OK as long as it's fairly early-on in the process where we can actually help, but if it's last minute and we weren't involved from the beginning - there is rarely anything we can do. I cannot stress this enough: If you are planning a Destination Wedding - use the services of an experienced planner. Make sure they have the experience and power to fix things that can happen (hotels overbooked and are going to move 1/2 the wedding party to another hotel 30 minutes away, hotel messed up wedding dates and wants to move your wedding to the next day but some guests are leaving that day, etc). Do your research and look for things like # of DWs planned total, # of DWs planned per year, and industry awards. Look to actual quality-monitoring organizations like the Better Business Bureau to see if they are accredited (versus relying solely on chat rooms and blog posts)-these organizations are there to protect you. Finally, if you have questions...just ask. Don't be afraid to ask a planner these tough questions, it's an important event!
Finally, here are the comments that got me going on this track (and a photo from one of them - great shots!):
"We were scheduled to get married at the Aventura Spa Resort in Mexico, but due to everything going on in Mexico (global "Swine Flu" travel advisory) we had to change locations. I was so frustrated because I didn't want to go anywhere else, but our Destination Wedding Specialist recommended the Paradisus Palma Real Resort in the Dominican Republic. I could not have been more pleased! She knew the type of wedding I wanted to have and she matched the resort to my wedding expectations (elegant, romantic and relaxing). She made all the travel and wedding arrangements, all we had to do was show up and have a good time!"
"The month before the wedding we ran into some rare and unexpected difficulties with the on-site resort wedding coordinator. Our Destination Wedding Specialist reassured us and guided us through the crisis, ensuring us it would all work out fine and truly going to extra mile to make sure our special day went off as planned. Thanks to her, travel impressions and destination weddings, the issue was resolved and everything turned out amazing. The level of service provided was absolutely beyond expectation. Having someone with your best interests in mind is the only way to go about planning a destination wedding."
"I work in the marketing and events field, but let me tell you planning your wedding in a different country can be exciting and confusing at the same time. There are a lot of questions, preplanning, decisions, and much, much more. Our Destination Wedding Specialist helped put all of those concerns in order, into action, and most importantly into a reality."
"A few of our guests opted to not use Destination Weddings for their travel and if we had it to do all over again, we would have made that a stipulation of guests coming to our wedding. Everyone who booked through our Destination Wedding Specialist had a wonderful travel experience, a few of those who chose another vendor or to book it on their own had a less than stellar experience."