I met Alexa last summer while she was still in the process of planning her wedding out in California and was thrilled to hear from her after asking brides to share their experience with long distance planning! Although she wasn’t a bride of mine last year, she very graciously sharing these beautiful images taken by Carissa Lombardi Photography and a bundle of tips for brides in the same shoes she was just months ago. I know if you’re planning your wedding from afar, you’ll love hearing what she has to say!
I was living in Sioux Falls, SD and planning our wedding to be in Sacramento, CA.
I am from Houston, TX and my husband is from Sacramento, CA. My family and guests were going to have to travel no matter where we had the wedding and most of my husband’s family is from the Sacramento area. It just made the most sense AND CA is a great vacation spot!
Engaged in December and married the following October so just about 10 months.
Not being able to see/experience things in person. We decide on our venue from pictures and what we heard about it from family in the area. We couldn’t go check out DJs or taste cakes beforehand. We went off of a lot of reviews and suggestions which turned out being GREAT but we also probably spent a little more money going with options we knew were good vs maybe finding a DJ who just started and is looking for gigs or something along those lines.
Another challenge was deciding which things we had to spend a little more on for convenience. We went with a full service/inclusive venue so they provided chairs/tables/linens/bridal suite/catering/etc and a DJ/MC company that just totally handled the audio/timing/flow of the whole event from ceremony to reception. Organizing all those small details from states away just seemed silly and stressful.
We really relied on family in the area to take care of things we couldn’t. Think about talented people who can offer wedding day services as a gift. We have friends and family who offered us great deals on their services, specifically photography/videography/hair/makeup/cake.
The venue being full service and inclusive was extremely helpful.
My husband and I sat down and decided what was REALLY important to us and we focused on those things. Its easy to get caught up in all the details and the “you should do this” conversations so to keep our ideas streamlined and focused was really helpful. Some things that are traditional just weren’t valuable to us so we nixed them.
Honestly, no. Everything turned out great and ran really smoothly.
Weddingwire was helpful for finding a venue we loved that was also in our budget. From there, the venue provided a list of suggested vendors for us to use and that was the main resource we used for booking vendors.
Again, have fun and find ways to enjoy the process – it a once in a lifetime thing!
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