Couples around the world have been ditching the traditional idea of getting married at home, and are traveling to exotic destination to tie the knot. Many are looking for warmer climates and beach destinations, while there are others who are fascinated with European castles and cities. There are also those who choose some unexpected locations – such as snowy mountaintops, or even underwater weddings in tropical places.
So what is so appealing about destination weddings to the millennial generation? New technology, apps and social media are making it much easier to plan a destination wedding or a honeymoon, whether a budget one or a lavish affair.
It’s easy to plan a wedding on your own without hiring a wedding planner with such apps as WeddingHappy. This app offers various to-do lists, and sends alerts for tasks like "mail invites" or "pay deposit for the band." A created "event" can be shared with other people who are going to help with the planning.
A mobile app called Lola asks users to text where they’d like to go for their wedding or honeymoon. Then the app’s agents will respond with potential flights, hotels, restaurants, car rental companies and so on. The app also suggests before-and-after the wedding activities for a couple’s guests. Bookings can be done directly through the app.
A destination wedding for a 100 guests will be fun, but first you need to find hotel rooms for all your guests. A site called Skipper allows to enter a wedding location, dates, and the number of rooms needed, and it will offer nearby hotel rooms at different prices - as well as negotiate deals at each one through their booking agent. If a group is smaller, rooms can be booked directly through the site for 15 percent off.
It might be difficult to manage all paper invitations, create a wedding website and so on. Such apps as Joy allows guests to RSVP to you directly. On the wedding day, guests can also upload images to the app, so they are all in one place. Joy also helps create a wedding website, introduces guests to one another, schedules flights and makes other travel plans.
Hashtag generators now give a unique #hashtag to use for a specific wedding, so every attending guest can use them on social media to add their photos. Those who cannot attend are now able to participate as if they were there physically with such live streaming apps as Periscope. An app like Wedpics is designed to share wedding pictures only with wedding guests, avoiding full social media shares.
When the stresses of planning a wedding are over, there is one more job that needs to be done: sending the thank-you notes. Postable is a site that allows you to choose a design, type a message, and add or import a recipient's address. Then it prints a card and mails it in an envelope (for $3 each, plus postage). Postable uses "smart fonts," so if more than one letter is sent to the same person, the font will be slightly different.