Plans in Paradise
Destination Weddings
The world is truly your altar!
Destination weddings are a perfect way to elope with just the two of you or bring friends and family and make it an awesome group vacation to celebrate your union. The unique and creative options are endless with a destination wedding. You can have fire dancers on the beach at your reception. You can have a pig roast for dinner. You can have a cocktail hour by the rooftop pool overlooking the Caribbean Sea. Where you can do all of those things in the Midwest?
Reason 1: Almost stress-free
Plans in Paradise is not only a travel agency; we also are a wedding planning agency, so we literally take care of all the wedding and travel planning for you! Our Destination Wedding Planning Specialist will help you from picking where, to taking care of all of the back and forth with the resort, to coordinating all of the travel plans for you and your guests. We literally make it so you just show up, get pretty and say I DO!
Destination weddings are almost guaranteed to be simpler (and faster!) to plan than a traditional wedding and reception. Tourist boards are jumping on the bandwagon, with brochures highlighting all of their beautiful ceremony sites and governments are working to ease restrictions and attract to-be-weds.
Honeymoon-happy resorts and cruise lines around the world have made it easier and more appealing to wed on-site. They have full-time wedding coordinators on staff who are familiar with that country's marriage license requirements and who offer wedding packages that take care of all your ceremony essentials (photographer, cake, minister, etc.). You step off the plane and sign the papers; they take care of the rest.
If you're not getting married at a resort, you can still hire our destination wedding planning specialists who will still do all the work of coordinating the where, the how, the design and all of the coordinating travel pieces. Again, you just show up, get pretty and say I DO!
Reason 2: They're cost-effective
The affordability of a destination wedding has many couples speeding off to the airport faster than you can say "I do." For instance, a couple can fly to an all-inclusive resort in Jamaica, get married, and stay for a deluxe weeklong honeymoon for a few thousand dollars, including lodging, meals, drinks, and airfare. Compare that with your average 150-guest wedding costing about $28,000 -- which can easily skyrocket to more than $100,000 in big cities -- plus a few extra thousand for a honeymoon. To ease the financial burden, many couples opt to travel to a place where they can get married, have a honeymoon, and still have some money left over to start their new lives together.
Guests are more apt to attend a destination wedding as they view it as a vacation as well. Our Destination Wedding planning specialists will help you determine a location and resort that offers reasonable travel pricing for your guests so the likelihood that a friend and his family of six can come increases.
Reason 3: You call the shots
While formal weddings hold meaning for many couples, linking them to the traditions of their ancestors and culture, others want the experience to be unique, with a ceremony and location that reflect their true colors. Perhaps a safari wedding? A snowy mountain-peak ceremony? A cruiseship wedding? The world is your altar.
Reason 4: Perfect for second marriages
Been-there-done-that couples who are getting married for the second or third time choose destination weddings because they're simple and private. Either the bride and/or groom have done the Hollywood-scale production before and want something quieter or less expensive this time around, or they want to be someplace out of the ordinary, without the watchful eyes and whispers of the hometown crowd. (Get married at a kid-friendly, all-inclusive resort or cruise to help your new Brady Bunch do some solid bonding.)
Reason 5: They're a once-in-a-lifetime reunion opportunity
At a typical wedding, you're on the run, meeting and greeting. Destination weddings are on vacation time. You're usually required to arrive a few days early to fill out the paperwork, so by the time your wedding rolls around, you've had two to three days of fun with your significant other, family, and friends. How often do you have the opportunity to spend no-rush quality playtime with dear, far-flung friends? This is your chance.
