Wedding Planning from a Distance - Advice?

You ladies are fantastic, thank you so much for all your advice and words of encouragement!

Hi Julie, I want to connect you with a few other members who are also planning from a distance -

Distance Planning Advice

Planning from a Distance

I hope you can get some advice and support from other members who are long distance planning too!

Congratulations on your engagement! I think the general sentiment is, don't worry about it too much! Honestly, the only "in person" planning I did was visiting the venue (once before booking), my wedding dress shopping, and my hair trial appointment I just did (one month out from the wedding).

One of the important things to figure out is, based on your budget, are you going to need to do a lot of DIY projects, or can you afford to do some purchased items? (Signs, favours, arrangements, decor, etc)....

I know I literally just finished 2 hours of making my wedding favours, but I would never be able to travel with them, so if you're visiting home (Toronto), between now and the wedding, make sure you utilize as much time as you can to get physical items purchased or made. Purchasing you can do online from afar, but having dates/times set to get some family/friends together to help with projects for an afternoon can be a nice social time, while getting wedding stuff done.

Overall you will be able to do most of your planning electronically, and for vendors it's no different to email someone an hour drive away, or a 10 hour flight away (except the time difference for email response... haha).

Best of luck on your planning! We're here for all the other questions you will most certainly have!!

I agree with jennifer, most vendors are great about email. I'm not planning from a distance, but i live in a small town and some things (like my rental company) are actually based out of town but frequently do weddings over here. We are a ferry ride to vancouver island or 2 ferry rides to Vancouver, so just "hopping" over for a day isn't quick or easy (or cheap, for that matter!)



I conversed mostly by email with my rental company for the first 4 months and then just made an effort to stop by in person the next time I was actually going to the island for something just so I could see everything in person, although it really wasnt necessary to

Definitely do separate invitations, or they will be overwhelmingly ",wordy" for your guests and you can have a bit love fun with them when there is less writing to deal with.

If you know anyone locally to the wedding, maybe you can have them check things out for you, like venue, catering, etc?

Good luck with everything!

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Hi Jennifer, thanks so much for sharing your thoughts, experiences, and suggestions! We think that 3 sets of invitations in each language will be much better as well

Congrats and welcome to the community! they are awesome!

I am not planning from a distance. but have had friends do it. the majority of vendors that I deal with have been awesome with conversing by email. which is super helpful (because then you also have a paper trail). if you have a family member or friend willing to look at some venues/get you info/photos. that is helpful too.

in terms of fusing things together. weddings are truly what you want them to be/how you want it to be. in terms of the tri-lingual. I personally would do 3 separate invitations because otherwise that is a LOT of wording on one invitation.

friends of mine that were married were Chinese and Caucasian. they did a private Chinese tea ceremony (dressed in traditional clothes) in their hotel suite with their family and their wedding party before the wedding. the groom left the room/went downstairs to the wedding ceremony (everything was at a hotel), and bride changed into a wedding dress. they did a Canadian ceremony. half way through the reception she changed into another Chinese dress (not a traditional/ceremonial robe...just a nice fitted/Chinese style dress). and it was awesome.

I haven't been to a Vietnamese wedding/tea ceremony. but you could even incorporate it into a traditional wedding ceremony and just have you and FH have the tea or include all your guests. you could also do that at the start of your ceremony.

good luck on planning!