In case you were wondering, I’m still alive! Been ultra busy since January planning and organizing our wedding ceremony.
After visiting Tobago over winter break last year we decided we want to have our wedding ceremony at Magdalena Resort.
We’re planning a 1 day Hindu ceremony followed by a cocktail hour and then a buffet dinner. The next day we plan on taking our guests on a boat tour of Buccoo reef and Nylon Pool.
The main ideas were pretty easy to plan out. Getting in touch with vendors was a little bit more difficult due to long distance phone calls etc.
But after 1 month things are almost done with the wedding 2 months away. I think we’ll be OK.
Here’s an outline of the planning and preparation:
- Decide on a budget
- Decide on guest list. We’re having a small ceremony in Tobago with fewer guests and plan to have a bigger reception in the Midwest later with more guests.
- Book a venue – Having it at a hotel is nice since we’ll be staying there too.
- Book vendors – This was a bit tricky to do since I had to figure out long distance phone calling to Trinidad for cheap. Decided to buy minutes as needed from AT&T and use WhatsApp to contact vendors. We got a coordinator there who is willing to help with setup and décor. Booking a good photographer is important too. Did research on the photographer works online before choosing one. We had to get a Pundit (Hindu Priest) to pick a good date for us and verify it was when the hotel would not be having its busy seasons.
- Get clothes. I ended up going shopping in the Devon area of Chicago for Indian Bridal and Grooms wear. A good friend recommended that area to us and it was awesome for Indian wear shopping. I went to 3 stores and tried on 3 different outfits before making my decision. The Sahil’s store had all the matching jewelry and accessories for us.
- Create wedding website – I used www.appycouple.com they also include a phone app that guests can use for info., message each other and post pictures.
- Send email save the dates – I used www.greenvelope.com to send out custom email save the dates because it’s much faster to reach people who live abroad.
- Design and send wedding invitations – Ended up using www.minted.com for our wedding invitations because they offer free recipient envelope printing. The invitations turned out gorgeous 🙂 I paid extra at the post office to have them hand cancelled to avoid them getting damaged by their machine processing.
- Buy gifts and some décor for guests from Oriental Trading company and Amazon
- Book plane tickets
Hopefully all we need to do is show up get fancy and enjoy with our guests.
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