If you are planning an elopement or a destination wedding, you might be wondering how do you go about finding vendors. Do you hire vendors local to the destination, vendors that are local to your home town, or do you go crazy and hire anyone? These are all great questions and we are going to break down how to make finding your destination vendors.
Getting Started
Having a destination or an elopement wedding is a dream come true for many couples. But with planning a destination wedding, there come specific challenges. One of those is choosing and finding the right wedding vendors at a destination you may not have been to before.
But with the following tips, it is easier than you may think. So, let’s dive right in.
Before booking your destination wedding vendors you have some important decisions to make.
- Where are y’all even getting married?
- When is the wedding date?
- How much money do you want to spend?
- Do we want to hire a destination wedding planner?
Once you have some answers to these questions we can dig deeper into planning your destination or elopement wedding.
Elopement Wedding Vendors
The following vendors are must-haves for an elopement or destination wedding
- Wedding Venue or Dream Location
- Wedding Photographer
- Wedding Videographer
- Officiant
- Hair and Makeup Artist
- Florist
The following are optional and depend on your vision and your goals for your wedding
- Caterer
- Transportation
- Stationary
- Lighting
- Cake
Now that we have a list of our must have vendors let’s do some research and find the ones that are going to make our dream destination wedding come true.
Wedding Photographer
Your elopement photographer should be one of the first vendors that you book. Your elopement photographer will be someone who is not only experienced with wedding photography, but experienced with the location or destination that you selected. Your photographer will spend your entire elopement together with you, so find somebody that you enjoy spending your time with and elevate your elopement experience. Here are some important questions to ask your elopement photographer
- Have you photographed elopements?
- Have you been photographed at our location or elopement venue?
- Will they have all the required permits and will they be able to follow all the guidelines at a given location?
- What is their plan if the location is overcrowded during a wedding day?
- What happens if there is unforeseen circumstances such as rain, fires, road closures or anything unexpected?
- Will they have a second photographer to help document these moments?
- If they are flying in, when will they arrive at the location.
Wedding Videographer
No need to go any further, you found your wedding videographer. Kidding. A few questions you are going to ask when deciding on your elopement wedding videographer
- How will you work with the photographer during the elopement day?
- Will you be able to hike or travel with all of your equipment depending on the location?
- How comfortable are you with filming elopements?
- Can we choose the music for our wedding film?
Elopement Planner
Even though you are planning an elopement, there are still a lot of similarities to a traditional wedding. One of the biggest positives of hiring an elopement planner is to help eliminate unwanted stress or anxiety when it comes to finding vendors, helping with locations, permits and any off the wall circumstances that can arise.
If you are set on not having an elopement planner, hire a wedding photographer that is comfortable with planning your timelines and handling all the logistics that come with an elopement. Here are a few reasons that you would consider hiring a wedding planner for your elopement
- What experience do they have with the location or venue?
- Do they have vendor recommendations that are local or will they be out of town vendors?
- When will the vendors arrive for the wedding?
- Will you offer full service elopement planning or is it more of a day of planning?
- Can you help with getting permits?
- What happens if our elopement location is closed or too crowded during the wedding day?
Elopement Officiant
If legalizing your marriage during your wedding day is important, we recommend that you have an officiant. Many couples choice to legalize the marriage before or after, depending on the location, but we recommend that you have an officiant on hand. If you don’t want to spend money on an officiant, asking parents or friends to step up can be a great idea. Here are a few questions to ask your elopement officiant.
- Will you be able to travel to our location? If you are getting married on top of a mountain, you want to make sure all of your vendors are comfortable hiking or traveling to these locations.
- What information do you need to prepare for the ceremony?
- If you have a special ceremony, make sure they are aware and comfortable with performing and abiding to all traditions.
Elopement Hair and Makeup
You might choose to do your hair and makeup yourself, but we highly recommend you hire a professional. Having someone that can make you look beautiful all day long will be something that you will never regret, and make your photos and videos that much more special.
- How early are they willing to show up to start hair and makeup? If you are doing a sunrise hike, hair and makeup could start as early as 2 or 3 am.
- Are hair and makeup trials included in the package?
- Have they done hair and makeup for similar types of elopements? How familiar are they with the conditions?
- Will you travel with to our ceremony or reception locations?
- Can they provide additional make up for touch ups, or provide some guidance on how to make sure the hair and makeup stays on flawless for the entire day.
- Do you have an emergency plan for the wedding day?
Elopement Florist
Having a florist can elevate your elopement to new levels. Having gorgeous flowers at your ceremony will only make the location look that much more magical. Now let’s get into the bouquet. You are going to want something that you are going to be comfortable walking, hiking and carrying the entire day. Make sure it is a bouquet that is fairly light and easy for you to carry.
A few questions to ask your elopement florist
- When can we pick up our flowers? If you can pick up your flowers early, we recommend storing your florals in a vase out of the direct sunlight. This will make them last and look beautiful on your wedding day.
- What ideas do you have for elevating our elopement florals?
- Do you have any recommendations based on my elopement location?
- How heavy will the bouquet be? Will I be able to carry it all day?
Congrats if you are just starting the elopement planning process. If you are considering having a wedding videographer, We are Eclicktik Films, a Kansas City based destination wedding videographer specializing in elopements and extravagant soirées worldwide. You can learn more about us and our approach here and check us out on instagram if you are a total creep.
We Want More:
