Planning a three-day destination wedding on a tropical island

¶ … Tropical Wedding

Date of Submittal

This plan will focus on a wedding on a remote tropical island, with 100 guests. The bride and groom want the wedding to be a three-day event, with special activities for each day. This plan will focus on accommodations, transportation, dining, resources, and budget for the event. When helping plan a major event, particularly a wedding, it is critical to focus on the role of the event planner. Event planners are supposed to help save the couple time, worry, stress, and money. The function is to bring professional knowledge to use to help the clients plan a particular event (Barillo, 2000). For local weddings, this would involve personal knowledge of the best vendors, venues, and other service providers. For a destination wedding, the event planner's role changes slightly, because the event planner will not be able to rely on the same personal knowledge and personal relationships to help create the event.

The destination wedding differs somewhat from a regular event in that it provides greater opportunity to the couple. Wedding writer Bekah Wright says, "You'll make your mark as a couple at your wedding. Once it's official, show the rest of the world what you two are all about on your honeymoon" (2003). A destination wedding allows a couple to do both things at the same time; officially become a couple in front of their friends and family, while, at the same time, displaying the personality and personal interests that one usually displays on a honeymoon. Moreover, they invite their friends and family to participate in the event in a way that makes it more personal and more intimate than many non-destination weddings.

Event Theme

The couple has chosen to go with a tropical theme for their wedding. A huge reason that they chose a tropical location was because both of them enjoy diving, the beach, and tropical flora and fauna. They want the entire feel of the wedding to have a "get-away" remote theme. To support the idea of a remote island get-away, the theme begins with the invitations. Rather than a standard invitation, the save-the-date invitation is a "message-in-a-bottle" design, with scrolls stuffed into small glass bottles and bearing all of the traditional save-the-date information. This sets the tone for the entire wedding, which is that the bride and groom want it to be a relaxing getaway for them and for their guests.

Location Analysis

The couple has chosen Palau, Oceania as the destination for their wedding. There are several reasons to choose Palau as a location. First, it is an idyllic setting that offers wedding guests the opportunity to sample a wide variety of activities. For examples, people can swim with dolphins, dive with sharks, enjoy excellent spa treatments, engage in historic touristry, or just relax on the beach (Luna, 2012). Even more significant, it is not difficult to get married on Palau, as it is in some tropical destinations. For example, some tropical locations require a couple to be in residency at the location for a month prior to the wedding, an expectation that is unrealistic for a young working couple with limited vacation time. "Making the nuptials official is as simple as presenting a notarized affidavit and having it notarized by the American embassy. Along with the marriage application and license fee, this material will be handed over to the president to sign and make official" (Luna, 2012).

The couple specifically chose the Palau Pacific Resort as the venue for the wedding. This chose was multi-faceted. First, the resort is located on a private beautiful white-sands beach, which was the setting desired by the couple for their actual wedding. It has 160 rooms, so that availability for a wedding with 100 guests (estimated approximately 40 rooms needed for guest's accommodations) will be manageable with sufficient notice. The couple if very interested in both snorkeling and diving, and the resort is renowned for its diving opportunities. Moreover, travel to Palau is relatively simple. Continental Airlines flies to Palau from both Houston and Los Angeles, with connecting flights in Honolulu and Guam (Luna, 2012).

The location itself is simple: it has hotel amenities such as the availability of a bar, restrooms, and on-site catering facilities, but it also offers the flexibility of an outdoor venue. The resort has a private beach, and, for weddings, it will restrict use of all or part of the private beach to the wedding party for a set period of time. The hotel will set up a heart-shaped trellis covered in tropic flowers, folding chairs, and tiki torches on the beachfront for the wedding itself.

The other requirements for this location were met (Richardson, 2010). The room size is large enough for all of the guests during the reception, there is available audiovisual requirements, and the catering, security, and reception area is handled by the hotel (Palau Pacific Resort, 2012).

Anticipation

For a destination wedding, creating excitement as an exchange for having to travel is the key to anticipation for the wedding party as well as the guests. Therefore, it is imperative that there is a connection between the couple to be married, the location, and the guests. To maintain this link from the initial proposal considering it is a destination wedding, which requires more time because of the booking lead time, I offer