Destination Wedding Diaries: Finding Our Venue

In case you missed my 5,000 ring-drops on Instagram, I’m in the midst of planning a destination wedding. My fiancé (woo!) and I got engaged in July last year and I immediately knew we’d tie the knot abroad. I was SO excited, but somewhere between frantic Pinterest board creation and mini meltdowns about being old enough to get married without anyone raising an eyebrow, I realised how difficult it was going to be to plan a destination wedding.

Seriously, it’s hard. One of the (many) reasons we chose to get married abroad was because it felt ‘easier’ than doing it in the UK but I now know that’s not true unless you do it in like, Vegas after 12 daiquiris (no shade btw, you’re clearly living your best life if you do it that way). There have been plenty of disappointments and more than a few tears (mine) during the venue hunting phase, lemme tell ya. In fact, at one point I realised that if Tom still wants to marry me after all the stress of finding a wedding venue abroad that I like, it’ll be a miracle.

I wanted to share the planning process in case it helps anyone else planning a destination wedding and I figured diary-style posts are probably going to be the most useful format. So, here’s what’s happened in the past few months, from saying yes to paying the deposit on our dream wedding venue in Sorrento, Italy.

How we found our destination wedding venue

Choosing a venue for a destination wedding is overwhelming. The problem with deciding you want to get married abroad is that the world is quite literally your oyster, and the possibilities are endless. First, we focused on narrowing down our preferred countries.

Choosing a country to get married in

The key things to consider when deciding on a country for a destination wedding are cost, travel time for your guests, legal formalities (is it easy for foreigners to marry there?) and of course, your personal preferences. What vibe do you want at your wedding? What should the backdrop look like? The food? The decor?

Our only real criteria, aside from the location feeling ‘right’, was that it had to be a short flight from the UK. Neither of us wanted to ask our families to fly long-haul for our wedding, so places like Mexico were immediately off the table.

I’d always said that if I ever got married it would be in Italy, but I was quickly put off the idea by people warning me how difficult it was for foreigners to get married legally there. I wasn’t keen on having to do a ‘real’ ceremony or signing of papers in England so I allowed myself to be deterred, and decided to instead focus on the Greek islands and, for a little while, Cyprus.

We (I) wanted our wedding to be intimate, rustic and non-stuffy so these countries felt like the best fit. Both seem like excellent destinations to tie the knot overseas if you’re from Britain and they also offer the best value for money, in my opinion.

I started looking for venues I liked in Greece and Cyprus and almost paid a deposit twice, in completely different locations than the one we eventually decided upon! For a while I was fixated on Santorini and Mykonos but I’ve since decided that while I definitely want to visit those places one day, I don’t want to get married in either due to the crowds and expense.

My dream wedding has always been in the Tuscan countryside so I went back to that idea. I soon realised that it would be a logistical nightmare and that I’d end up planning the entire holiday for every wedding guest, so I had to abandon my Tuscan dream. But Italy was back on the table.

Finding a venue in a destination we’ve never visited

I researched the various wedding venues in Italy using brochures from the travel agent, a lot of googling and using location specific hashtags on Instagram (e.g. #SorrentoWedding, #ItalyWedding).

I must have gone to our local TUI at least six times, and each time I sat there for over an hour, pouring over brochures where nothing appealed to me. It didn’t take me long to realise that I definitely didn’t want to get married in an all-inclusive hotel or in any of the other venues that high street travel agents work with. It’s probably one of the cheapest and simplest ways to get married abroad, but none of the venues they showed me felt right.

I kept chasing my Italy dream and started searching for venues, like the millennial cliché that I am, on Instagram.

I then read every online review available and contacted the owners of the reception venue to check they could do everything I wanted. Italy has some strict laws and we had to forget about a few gorgeous venues because they didn’t allow loud music at night.

I found our venues. Halle-fcking-luja..

We chose Sorrento, a place I’ve always associated with romance.

The best ways to book a destination wedding

We considered booking our ceremony through a travel agent and dealing with the reception venue ourselves, but eventually decided to book the whole thing through a wedding planning company that specialises in destination weddings.

The difficulty with arranging everything independently was ensuring we got both the ceremony venue and the reception venue on the same dates! I couldn’t handle the uncertainty.

I eventually went back to a company I’d found during my very first google search for destination wedding planners, Ionian Weddings. They had excellent reviews, and they just so happened to have a package for our venues. Of course, they didn’t give the reception venue name (perhaps because people could then contact the venue and plan it independently) but I did careful photo comparison and concluded it was the same place I’d been emailing.

I paid the deposit.

Coordinating wedding venues and travel dates

We booked in January but were told that the ceremony venue won’t actually confirm our wedding date until April, which is annoying but not that much of an issue because we booked through a planner so they can move things around if necessary. That’s what I’m telling myself anyway. We’ve already booked our flights and hotel but we did it through a travel agent who allowed us to just pay a deposit until our date is confirmed. That way we can alter our travel dates if necessary.

I’m reigning myself in from my urge to send out tentative save the dates, just so something is happening. Most impatient bride ever?

As much as I would have felt like a queen for organising the whole thing myself, I feel much better having a wedding planner on hand who has local contacts. The thought of trying to source an italian photographer, hairdresser and the million other wedding essentials (read: expenses) I probably haven’t even though of yet is just too much for a gal who frequently rocks up at the airport with no plan for her trip. If you can do it, and navigate language barriers, time differences, and the Italian ‘tomorrow’ attitude, more power to ya. I can’t.

By using a wedding planner, I basically have a catalogue of add-ons to choose from so I don’t have to do any of the legwork. Yes, they take a fee, but I’m happy to pay it if it means less for me to worry about.

Visiting the venue

I haven’t seen either of the venues with my own eyes. People warned me this was stupid, but I just had this feeling that when I knew I’d know, and even if the places didn’t turn out exactly as I’d imagined, we could at least laugh about it.

I’d be more than happy to get married without seeing the place, but I was really craving a trip a few weeks back so we’ve ended up booking a few nights in Sorrento in April, 13 months before our wedding day. We’ve already paid a hefty deposit so we won’t be changing our minds, but I kinda just want to scope the place out. It’ll help me visualise our big day and I’ll be able to give our guests tips about the area. Plus, it turns out more people than we expected plan to fly out to Italy for us, so it will be nice to have some time there together before the proper wedding trip.

So yeah, that’s where we’re at. I doubt Tom probably couldn’t tell you any of this (do grooms even need to be part of this process?) but I kind of feel like I’m getting there. And now, time to shop for my dress!

If anyone has any tips for planning a wedding in Italy, I’m all ears. I’m also going to share as much of this process as possible for fellow soon-to-be brides so if you have any questions or things you’d like me to cover in future posts, let me know!

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