Article: Destination Wedding Travel Tips

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Destination Wedding Travel Tips

Planning a destination wedding or beach wedding in the Caribbean and want
as many people to come as possible? Then try making your wedding plans as
attractive and as economical as possible.

There are several ways to cut costs on travel arrangements for you and
your wedding party, we’ve uncovered a few known ways, and a few unknown
ways, but it seems that the key to finding these deals lies in the
terminology you use. By simply searching out “Group Travel Rates” in
search engines you can uncover a world of discounts and tools that could
shave thousands of dollars off of your wedding expenses.

Here are just a few that we uncovered:

Flights

Most US carriers and some international carriers offer up to 10% discount
off normal fares for groups of 10 or more flying to the same destination.
For added convenience some airlines offer insert tickets to add to your
save-a-date envelopes to inform guests of this saving.

Some of this information is hidden in layers on airline sites so we've
done the work for you - short cuts to the information you need:

US Air: http://www.usairways.com/travel/group/weddings/index.htm
American Air:
http://www.aa.com/content/businessPrograms/groupsMeetings/weddingTravel.jhtml
Northwest Air: http://www.nwa.com/grouprequest/group_travel.html

You can also save on flights by choosing to have your wedding in off peak
seasons, most airlines will tell you when these are.

Resorts

If your opting for a “weddingmoon”, then you're probably looking at going
to an all inclusive resort. Many all-inclusives offer FREE weddings to
folks staying at the resort ie. Couples booked in to Sandals for five
nights get a free wedding which includes: the ceremony, flowers, a
Caribbean wedding cake, champagne and hors d’oeuvres reception for the
couple and 4 guests plus a wedding planner dedicated to help make your day
perfect. The down side of these deals is that you might not be the only
couple partaking and the resorts can sometimes feel like conveyor belt
weddings. For this reason all inclusives are now offering alternative
wedding packages that can create an exclusive feel to your special day.
Enquire with each resort.

Boutique or a la carte hotels are also onto the destination wedding trend
and many have created websites and services specifically geared at the
beach bride. Wyndham and Marriott specifically offer wedding packages and
group rates for a set number of hotel rooms. A wedding planner is
complimentary, as is a wedding gift and The Marriott even offers free
parking if you start your honeymoon off with a nights stay at a Marriott
nearby your airport location.

Wyndam Hotels is offering huge incentives to brides in the form of “event
awards”, free honeymoons and low cost airfares. In addition to this they
offer seasonal rates and discounts for weddings throughout the year. The
Hilton offers a free nights stay for your one year anniversary and free
spa treatments for the bride and groom on your special day.

It’s definitely worth scrolling through some of the major hotel chain
websites to see if offers are available for when you want to get married.

Villas

Villa’s or apartments can offer your guests a cheaper alternative to
resort type accommodation and is well worth adding to your itinerary sheet
as a courteous option. Once you've decided on the location for your beach
wedding, head of to a beach wedding website such as the Beach Wedding
Guide at http://www.islandbrides.com/ and search their directory for a
listing of villas and accommodation in your chosen region. You'll be able
to save your favourite finds, and contact them all from the site to find
out who will give you the best rate.

You can help your guests even more by giving them all your other guests
contact details and email addresses. This way, they could hook up to share
villa’s with multiple rooms lowering the cost even more.

So, with a bit of thought and 'insider knowledge' , its possible to save
hundreds, if not thousands on your beach wedding.

This article is one of many from the <a
href="http://www.islandbrides.com">Beach Wedding Guide</a> at
islandbrides.com. Islandbrides.com provides the only complete guide to
planning your beach wedding or destination wedding in over 30 Caribbean
locations.