Factoring in the guest experience is essential when planning any wedding. But, in my experience as a travel specialist, it’s even more crucial if you’re hosting a destination wedding! After all, your guests are sacrificing time, energy, and money to travel a long way for your nuptials. Taking intentional steps to uplevel their experience will let them know how much you appreciate their efforts to be present on your special day. Plus, it will ensure your wedding weekend is a fond memory they’ll always cherish! 

From providing advice on appropriate attire to hiring private airport transportation, there are many ways to enhance the guest experience at your destination wedding. Here are five of the best!

5 Ways to Uplevel the Guest Experience

Create a Wedding Website

Making a wedding website isn’t just a fun way to share engagement photos or the story of how you met. It’s also essential to providing your guests with a smooth, straightforward booking experience! Your wedding website will be the informational hub for all things related to your destination wedding, especially transportation and lodging details. That way, your guests only have to go to one place to locate all the info they need to book their room—instead of hopping from tab to tab or inundating you with emails!

Book a Room Block

I can’t emphasize how critical this is enough! Agreeing to a room contract, or “room block,” with your resort is the only surefire way to ensure enough lodging will be available for all your guests. Post-pandemic, international travel has EXPLODED, and now is not the time to wait to book rooms on the off chance that prices drop or your guest count fluctuates.

Book a room block as soon as possible to lock in availability and pricing. It may seem like jumping the gun, but trust me: it’s not. Plus, couples who agree to a room contract receive all kinds of perks from the resort, including FREE rooms!

Hire Private Airport Transportation

Booking private airport transportation is one way to enhance your guests’ experience from the moment they land! Find a reliable destination management company (DMC) and hire them to shuttle your guests from the airport to the resort. Doing this will make life so much easier for them AND you since you can rest easy knowing your loved ones are in capable hands!

Distribute a Wedding Weekend Timeline

Create an hour-by-hour timeline of your wedding weekend to share with your guests. Then, dedicate a page of your wedding website to your timeline so your guests can access it easily. Alternatively, create a PDF or downloadable image that they can save to their phones. This is the easiest way to ensure everyone is in the right place at the right time—an absolute must at a destination wedding!

Advise Appropriate Attire

For many of your guests, it’s probably their first time attending a destination wedding. Providing tips on what kind of attire and what colors to wear is always helpful. And don’t forget about footwear! Let your guests know if your ceremony will occur on the beach or on another uneven terrain. They’ll likely want to leave their stilettos at home!

These tips might seem like a lot to keep straight—and for many first-time destination wedding planners or international travelers, they are! My best advice is to hire a travel specialist. They’ll take care of resort bookings, send out travel documents to each guest, arrange private transportation, and provide you and the resort with a room list, so everyone’s on the same page. Basically, they’ll simplify the process from A to Z, so you don’t have to worry about anything!

With the help of a professional, you can ensure that your guests have a fantastic experience at your destination wedding. Ready to get the booking process started? I would love to help you plan the seamless escape you’ve been dreaming of! Get in touch today.