Wedding Venues, Vendors, & Vaccines, Oh my!

Best advice on finding destination wedding venues and vendors completely online! How will weddings look moving forward after the pandemic?

When you think of a destination wedding, first thought that comes to mind is a tropical island. And even though we almost decided to chose our beloved St. Lucia, where Mike proposed to me on top of the Stairway to Heaven, we wanted something different. Someplace new and exciting that we could explore together. We chose France because of my roots and our shared desire to explore France’s rich history on our honeymoon. After all, France is one of the most romantic countries in the world!

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How to Find your Destination Wedding Venue

A More Affordable & Unique Wedding Option

We researched many different countries before ultimately deciding on France. We looked at Scotland and Ireland because who wouldn’t love an epic elopement at a Scottish castle? But what helped make the final decision was when I was browsing Château rentals on Oliver’s Travels. This is a website for vacation villas and chateaux all over the world. Previously, we assumed we would get married in a standard New York catering hall that is rented for 4 hours, costing anywhere from $20,000 to $50,000, or even more.

I brought the website to Mike’s attention and we were both mind-blown at how affordable a castle rental was! We rented our entire castle and estate for a total of 4 days/3 nights for about €3720 (or $4500 USD). It was about €5000 (or $6100 USD) with 3 days of food and alcoholic drinks. This included the entire estate as a venue, lodging for about 32 people, our private chef, catering and use of the historic chapel for our ceremony. There were several chateaux that we had our eye on. However, this one in Mairy-sur-Marne encapsulated our vision of the perfect romantic and historical venue, accommodation, and enchanted wedding ceremony spot. Now let’s talk about the how to find a venue like ours!

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How to Search a Venue Website

Oliver’s Travels caters more for those looking for vacation rentals. However, I used it more as a resource for wedding venue scouting! Some places have rules about no weddings or large events, but some welcome them! I think this is a great place to start if you are looking to have your wedding outside of the USA.

Example of the Cutest Rental

Keep in mind is that venues featured on Oliver’s Travels (or other websites) sometimes do not use the actual name of the venue and call it something else. I wanted to find the website of Château de Mairy so I could book them directly and cut out the third party booking service. So, I searched Google for a château in the Champagne area and found the one that looked like the pictures in Oliver’s Travels (Château de Jaques). To be a good planner requires some investigation skills!

A Venue with History

The history of the château is what sealed the deal for us. We both agreed that we wanted to get married at a venue that was historically significant. We wanted to feel the history and be brought out of 2020 for a moment and back in time. The château was built during King Louis XIV’s reign and owned by French nobles, advisors to the king.

It became home for King James II and VII when he was exiled from England, Scotland and Ireland. I still can’t believe that Mary Queen of Scot‘s great grandson walked the same halls as we did here. To learn much more about this place, I wrote an entire post dedicated to it! You can tour many of the rooms through my photos! Then, experience the magic of our chapel and sneak peak our chef’s culinary creations. There is much more to learn about the astounding history! Link to the post is here!

Research Rules for Religious Wedding Ceremonies

By the Grace of God, we were married in the 14th-century chapel on the grounds of the château. This was an important factor for us during the venue search. We wanted a venue all-inclusive of a religious ceremony location, reception location and overnight accommodation. Having an all-in-one location assured that our guests would be happy because they wouldn’t have to drive at all. And we were lucky that the Catholic church allowed us to have our priest marry us in our enchanted chapel! Double check with the parish in your destination what they require. They could require their church to be the ceremony location or could be flexible on the location.

Also, be sure to research wedding laws where you want to go! For France, we needed to arrive already legally married in order to have a Catholic ceremony. So we tied the knot a month beforehand in New York and got married twice! This makes sense to do regardless because you want to legally be married in the country you live in. If you do not want a religious ceremony, then this gets even easier! Just hire an officiant for your venue and you are good to go.

Pick a Date around Weather & Activities

We picked dates that were available and during a time where the weather was perfect in the Champagne region. End of August is perfect for that reason. An added perk is that it was harvest season for the champagne grapes! Think about the time of year that you want to visit your destination and plan a wedding date around that. Even if you’re planning an indoor wedding, one of the highlights of a destination wedding are the pre and post wedding activities! Plan your destination wedding around events you would like to go to. Also consider how the weather tends to be during that time and if its peak tourist season or not.

What about Food Tastings?

Traditionally couples visit a venue before booking it. They do food tastings, cake tastings, and attend wedding fairs to find their vendors. All of which we did none of and really had no desire to. Even the mediocre food in France, is still better than the best food I’ve had in New York. We trusted our chef and the bakery to prepare us meals we would never forget and we were not disappointed! We booked the venue and chef with full and complete faith and so happy that we did. If that isn’t something you are comfortable with, you could always fly in for tastings as a mini-vacation. Also check online reviews or ask past guests about their culinary experience.

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How to Find Vendors Online

For our vendors, I found every single vendor on Instagram believe it or not! We found them on Instagram and then studied their websites and portfolios very deeply. We searched based on location, hashtag services, and their aesthetic. I messaged many vendors and chose the best ones based off of price, response to inquiries, reviews, and how their finished products looked. The vendors that take their businesses seriously will answer your DMs! The hair & makeup artist, classical musicians, photographer, videographer, and day-of coordinator we hired, were mostly easy to communicate with online. One or two vendors were not very virtually responsive after the deposit was paid, but that was not for their lack of online presence, but more of their business attitude, which I will explain further below.

How We decided who to Hire

We loved their art and their price point, which helped us make the decision to hire our vendors remotely! Even through COVID lockdowns, our vendors were always answering messages and emails. For a destination wedding, communication is key with your vendors and choosing the right people will ease your anxiety drastically. If you are thinking about a France destination wedding, our favorite vendors are linked below! The only vendor we cancelled was our live band from the UK, which was one of the disappointments caused by COVID because we were really looking forward to them. It didn’t make financial sense for us to still hire the band for only a small group. This was one deposit that we lost, but thankfully it was a very small deposit.

Book local Vendors

As it turns out, even if we hired them, they probably would have had to cancel anyway because at the end of August, the UK brought back their quarantining measures again for travel into France! We used a Bluetooth speaker and an iHeartRadio playlist for our music and frankly, that is all you need! But this is a learning experience that I would like to share- it would be smart to have all your vendors located in the same country. No one knew that UK to France travel would ever be an issue until borders decided to close between them last minute! I remember that members of the UK only had 24 hours to return back to the UK before a strict 14-day quarantine was enforced.

Luckily, we still had our amazing orchestra for our ceremony, cocktail and dinner. Our violinist came the farthest and she was from Nice! Our music vendors were the only vendors that we researched online for (not Instagram) and we looked up specific websites (linked below) to help us find the groups that matched our vibe!

Moral of the story- make sure you are the only ones traveling and book local vendors to your destination wedding!

• Hair and Makeup artist, Onorina: https://www.onorinajomirbeauty.com/
• Day of Wedding Coordinator, table and flower décor, Cindy: https://lovin-concept.com/
• Gorgeous custom cookies of the Château, Kat: www.katmakescookies.com/
• Handmade Watercolor invitations, Delphine: www.silentwordstudio.com
• We found the UK Band on www.bandsforhire.com
• Classical Cellist and Violinist, Four Friends Orchestra: https://www.hitchedinfrance.com/ceremony-and-cocktail-music/four-friends-orchestra

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My Vendor Highlights

Some photos of my vendors’ work that I mentioned above just to show how beautiful it all was!

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Any Wedding Regrets and Close Calls?

There are absolutely no regrets and nothing we would have changed or did differently for our perfect wedding. The only close calls we encountered, which could have been an issue if God was not on our side, was my passport and Mike’s tux. Mike went later than planned to start the process for a custom tux because of mandatory store closures. Normally the process isn’t that slow, but the tux was made in Italy and that shutdown in April 2020 when we went for the first fitting. We received the tux a few weeks before our flight, so it was a close call.

I would recommend following the wedding dress rule for a custom tux and order it at least 6+ months in advance to be safe.

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My Passport Nightmare!

Another stressor was my French passport. I was born a French-American citizen through my parents and I have never once appreciated that gift until my wedding day. I had my French passport, but really barely used it because my USA passport was always the golden ticket to any destination…except when I need it most. After reading the fine print from the French consulate’s website about the border closures for all Americans, I thought this was it, we have to cancel the whole thing or at least wait until the borders reopened. Back in April 2020, we thought there was no way borders would still be closed in August. But once June came and went…we were starting to panic. I read through the website again, but this time I read through the exemptions.

French nationals, and their spouse and children are allowed into France provided that they show proof of marriage and common life.

So I said…wait, I am a national! and Mike and I already knew we had to get civilly married before flying to France in order for the Catholic church to marry us. So this is good news! well…until I checked the expiration date on my French passport…expired 5 years! It’s June- there is no way I can renew this passport in time! I will still try.

Make sure all Travel Documents are current far in advance

I tried to make an online appointment for a passport renewal, but with COVID closures, the only appointments available were in November 2020. We emailed the consulate telling them my story and pleaded our case that the only way we can get married in France is if I can renew my passport. They deemed our situation as an emergency and I was able to go to the consulate in mid-July with my mom who also needed a passport renewal! This gave us 1 month to receive our new passports, which was cutting it so close.

Mine came in on the last day of July and my mom’s came in the beginning of August, only a couple weeks before our flight. When Mike and I had our civil ceremony on July 24, 2020 we didn’t know if we would be able to go to France until a week later! I am a Virgo, Type-A person, so as you can imagine this was a nightmare for me, but I actually kept my cool most of the time. How? I just decided not to worry about what I can’t control and what ever happens, happens for a reason. But I was absolutely going to try for what I could control!

Moral of the story- Make sure all your travel and ID documents are not expired, even ones you never expected to use because trust me, one day you’ll need it!

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Most Important Advice!

Invite Guests based on Venue, not Venue based on Guests

You and your partner deserve to book your dream venue to fulfill your vision. If that venue doesn’t allow all the guests you might feel pressured to invite, don’t settle for another venue! This is your wedding day. Never settle for anything less than what you envisioned your day to be together.

We only invited less than 20 guests originally, so when COVID affected the guest list, it did not ruin the intimate vibe when we had way less people in attendance. We invited the number of guests based on our venue, not the other way around, and we did that because it was the venue of our vision and that was our priority. You can imagine a huge catering hall would not look the same filled with 20 people instead of 100 or 200 people. I am happy we always planned for an intimate setting, but I know that there are some brides that don’t envision their wedding day as intimate and want a huge party! Unfortunately, times are changing and politicians can literally take control of our wedding situations now and in the future. So, it is important to have a contingency plan.

Consider an Intimate Wedding

My advice for future brides and grooms would be to consider the intimate wedding and later on have an epic anniversary party with less money invested than a wedding. An intimate wedding takes all of the stress and anxiety away from normal wedding planning and is so much more fun to plan when you are planning a party solely for yourselves and loved ones! Remember that this is your special day and you are marrying the love of your life, that is the priority.

Think Outside the Box for Venues

For those who want a bigger wedding no matter what, this is my advice. In the event that COVID is still around, comes back, or is replaced by another pandemic, a small wedding venue can ensure that the 100 people you invited can look amazing, but so can an elopement or micro-wedding at that same location.

Some ideas (not including a catering hall) are: an intimate church/chapel, secret garden, beach, national park, place of historical significance, rooftop in a beautiful city, the list goes on and on. This will be an event that stands out from every other wedding you have been to. It will forever be a fairytale in your memory and your guests will never forget it! We can still remember the taste of the lamb and potatoes au gratin that we chose for our candlelit wedding dinner…something most people soon forget after leaving a catering hall wedding (unless it was terrible and guests remember for years later).

Having a venue that looks equally as amazing with 100 chairs and no chairs at all, is a venue that will be stress-free when planning a destination wedding or even a local one, from 2021 onwards!

Really Connect with your Vendors

My last piece of advice is to really connect with your vendors online and ask questions about them personally and professionally! It is really important to have a good connection with your vendors and to find out if this is their career or just a hobby. You want to steer clear of vendors who prioritize other jobs above their wedding service job because you will not be able to get prompt responses to your questions or get your final products in a timely manner. You want to find similarities between you and your vendors, kind of like making new friends! The more you get along and share the same vision, the easier it will be to work together.

Reach out to other Brides Online

I highly recommend searching Instagram for other brides and grooms who hired specific vendors you are considering, and send them a DM asking for their experience! All you have to do is search the vendor’s tagged photos or hashtags. This is the best intel you will get and 9/10 you will get a response from a very friendly person willing to tell you everything you need to know! I am also one of those people, so do send me a message on Instagram or an Email through my Contact Me page! I have already spoken to many women looking at the same venue and vendors that I booked! I’ll tell you EVERYTHING- from the highlights to the lowlights- so that you could ultimately decide if the place or vendor is right for you.

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How Weddings will look…Medically?

Currently in Spring/Summer 2021, testing OR vaccinations are needed to be provided before attending a wedding. As of June 2021, France is allowing Americans to cross the border with vaccinations and a negative PCR test. Yay! Weddings are back on! But what does this mean moving forward?

Honesty is the Best Policy

I am sure one day testing and vaccinations won’t have to be provided. Now that we know what we know, we can prepare for future events and future diseases. We can take all of this into account when initially planning a wedding by choosing something smaller and more manageable. Another method is adding a Vaccine Q&A on your wedding website. This can state that guests are to provide a negative result or stay home if sick with something else (Flu or other plague lol).

Bride and grooms will have to make it known that it is important for guests will be honest to themselves. This is true especially before attending events if they know what they have is contagious, for infections other than COVID. Obviously, the more people that are invited, the larger the probability that someone’s contagious condition will slip through the cracks and they may not be honest about it. These are all things future brides and grooms will have to weigh when planning a wedding!

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Feel free to reach out to me for any destination wedding specific concerns or questions 🙂 Leave a Comment below!

Follow my personal Instagram at Foodfitbalance to check out the Wedding & Honeymoon highlights! EscapeinHerTravels Instagram will also feature some of these stories. Continue following for more Destination wedding posts!