A private beach, a charming small town or a magical spot in the middle of nature are dreamy places to have the most memorable day of your life. Now, organizing a destination wedding involves lots of planning and readjusting. How are you going to invite? Who makes the cut? The question then comes down to who, of those invited, have the time and the resources to go? If your dream is to have a beautiful wedding in an unique place, then there are some tips that I can give you before you begin this journey. Don’t worry! As a Pittsburgh wedding photographer, I’ve gone to my fair share of destination wedding and I can tell you, guests always seem to have more fun. Something about being a environment out of your normal comfort zone just let’s people have an awesome time!

Some things to keep in mind are:

Keep in short!

A destination wedding is not something everybody can fit into their schedule. That means that your guest list is going to have to be reduced to the dearest people in your life, so close friends and family. This also ends up making your whole wedding cheaper! Since a regular wedding usually has around 200 people, a destination weddings tends to have from 30 to 50 guests. So, you’ll be spending less in food, invitations, and even the hotels tend to have special prices for groups and can offer packages for an all inclusive wedding!

Communication is key!

Now, once you get to your destination, depending on where it is, keeping everyone informed and connect can sometimes be difficult. Not everyone has data service in countries abroad or checks their social media to see if any important information is being posted!

If you need to delay an activity or change the location of anything, there should be direct communications with the guest. I recommend speaking with everyone individually, to avoid any mishaps.

Everybody is welcomed!

A big thing about destination weddings is that if you go, you expect to have a good time! You want to hang out and spend quality time with the couple that invited you, so it’s important that you organize activities for you and your guests to have a blast in! Everyone should be invited to participate in all the vents, since it’s rude to exclude someone from any event, specially when maybe you and your partner are the only people they know in the place!

Try to spend time with all of your guests

It’s normal if all you want is to hang out with your friends, but usually, those friends live near you and get to be with you on a regular basis. That is not the case for some relatives, family friends or old classmates, and even if you’re not as close to them. In a normal reception, it’s okay to spend only 2 minutes with some guests, but not when you’ve traveled with them and are spending a weekend together! Show them some love!