Planning a Destination Wedding

by Robin Bonner

A Favorite Place
We were camping near Acadia National Park, in Maine. It was a trip we had taken as a family many times. Only now, the girls were grown, and they were reliving childhood memories: the waves crashing against the rocks at Thunder Hole, tidal pools in the early morning at Anemone Cave, sunrise on Cadillac Mountain, lobster dinners in Bar Harbor, sunset over Sommes Sound, hiking in Acadia, kayaking around the islands, bicycling to Jordan Pond House and eating popovers at rustic tables set up on the lawn, overlooking the pond.

Amie and her boyfriend were engaged that summer, and Todd was along on the trip. So, it was no big surprise when, near the end of the week, Amie blurted out, "Mom, wouldn’t this be a great place for a destination wedding?!" They had attended such a wedding in Vail, Colorado, just the month before and were impressed with the whole idea. My heart sank. A destination wedding? We live near Philadelphia and Amie near Los Angeles. In my mind, Philly, LA, and Bar Harbor, Maine, formed almost a perfect triangle—you couldn’t get much further away from one another on the continental U.S. And, we all were very busy people. It sounded impossible.

The Information Age
Once Amie verbalized her idea, I knew there was no getting out of it. After vacation, we went on a fact-finding mission. Amie googled "Acadia weddings" and turned up a multitude of websites for wedding-related vendors: hotels, inns, wedding planners, restaurants. Evidently, Mount Desert Island was no stranger to wedding parties or their guests. "Hotels Mount Desert Island" offered a host of hotels, inns, and bed and breakfasts. The Bar Harbor Chamber of Commerce added to the list. Amie picked the ones she liked best (they looked pretty and friendly, and their websites professional), then checked to see if they did weddings.

Amie used Google Maps to locate venues on the island. Some hotels and inns offered "Wedding Links" on their sites to other related vendors. My husband Gary and I also did some checking around, and we all discussed our findings. In fact, throughout the entire process, we were in touch by email and telephone almost daily.

Before long, Amie had planned a fall reconnaissance mission in Maine by web, email, and phone. We had appointments to view reception sites and a date with a wedding planner. (We planned to pick her brain clean.) We needed ceremony and reception sites, flowers, a photographer, music, a cake, transportation, tuxes, hotels, and restaurants. Our work was cut out for us.

In addition to the wedding, Amie and Todd wanted to offer their guests a fun-filled weekend: A brunch, a hike, popovers, and lobster were all in their plans. Most destination weddings are held in a particular location because it is beautiful. This beautiful place was special to our family, and Amie wanted to share it with her wedding guests. The rocky cliffs, crashing waves, and sleepy mast-dotted harbors would serve as a backdrop for Amie and Todd’s special day.

Comfort Level
More than anything, we needed a comfort level that all this would work out well. After all that legwork, nothing could really replace the confidence that face-to-face meetings would bring to the whole process.

It was mid-October. We picked Amie and Todd up in Boston after their overnight flight from LA and did the 5+ hour drive to Mount Desert Island. We checked into our B&B, just in time to meet with the wedding planner at 3:00 p.m. Judie Noonan of Eden Weddings had a Downeast friendliness and a knowledge of just about everything on the island related to a wedding. She also seemed to know everyone on the island! (Most Mount Desert Island weddings, she told us, were destination weddings—there were too few year-round residents to provide the business.)

Judie gave us tips on what to expect (and what not to expect) at various venues. Off the top of her head, she named florists, photographers, and musicians. (We later confirmed these as "tops" with the venues we visited.) We told her where we already had appointments, and she told us what she knew about them. In the decade she had been in business, she had planned weddings at every venue we mentioned. We talked about our budget, and she made a lot of suggestions, from holding a catered dinner at a community center to having a full sit-down dinner at one of the island’s nicest resorts. I finally had the comfort level I needed to feel that maybe we weren’t completely crazy to go this route.

Amie and Todd wanted to have their wedding ceremony outdoors—on the rocks overlooking Frenchman’s Bay. Judie was a great help here. She showed us several outdoor sites within Acadia National Park where she had organized weddings successfully. Because of the park’s one-way Loop Road, which can be confusing to out-of-towners, she suggested hiring "Oli's Trolleys" of Bar Harbor to shuttle everyone from the reception site to the wedding site, then back again. That way, there would be little chance of anyone missing the wedding because of misconstrued directions. And, the trolleys would add a little Downeast flair to the event. We would also secure an indoor venue, as a bad-weather backup.

Decisions Made
By the end of the weekend, we had visited four possible reception venues, each with its own charm. In the end, we chose the Asticou Inn for Amie and Todd’s special day. Tom Weverstad, the Asticou’s event planner, won us over with his obvious capability and easy-going charm, and the inn stole our hearts right away. The beautifully sunlit, muraled dining room was elegant yet comfortable, the lobby and common areas warm and inviting, and the view from the picture windows, down the sloping grassy grounds toward the mast-studded harbor was simply breathtaking. When Tom offered to waive the facility fees for a certain weekend the following October, he clinched the deal.

We also interviewed and selected other Mount Desert Island wedding vendors. Janice Strout would make the cake. (You wouldn’t believe the delicacies this woman puts together for weddings, and all the reputable places use her.) Photographer Donna Just would take very good care to record the special day. She’s a former social worker, in the wedding photography business for more than a decade now. Who better to work with a nervous bride and groom, and two families just getting to know one another? Laurie of Cottage Flowers works out of her barn studio, a stone’s throw from her home. She grows her own flowers and specializes in unique and stunning seasonal arrangements. She won us over immediately with her friendly manner and portfolio of beautiful floral creations.

Home and on a Roll
The weekend was a smashing success, and when we arrived home, we hit the ground running. We had chosen sites for the ceremony and reception, a florist, a bakery, and a photographer. We had also enlisted the help of a wedding planner. We decided to alert guests to the need to "save the date." I had some knowledge of page layout programs and wanted to do something personal, so with Amie and Todd’s input, I created a "Save the Date Card," with basic info about the wedding (date, time, locaton). On it we chose to use a portrait of Amie and Todd standing pretty much at the wedding site, with their backs to the waves and the rocky coast. Oh, didn’t I mention the 500+ digital photos we took of the happy couple over that weekend? It gave the father of the bride something to do while we hemmed and hawed about where to hold the wedding reception!

Amie and Todd put together an information sheet with travel info and a website. Wedding websites, in vogue at the moment, can provide the couple’s "story," an intro about their families, details on wedding travel and booking lodging, and bridal registries—ideas for gift giving. And, they can be updated with new or further information as it becomes available.

One drawback to sending a Save the Date Card is that a guest list needs to be pretty well set at that point, a lot earlier than you would need to do it otherwise. But, that does get everyone thinking. And, it also necessitates getting a mailing database done—which will be needed later, to mail the actual invitations. Gary took care of printing mailing labels: He created a database of guests in Microsoft Access from Amie’s Excel guest spreadsheet. He also dealt with getting everything printed, which was no small feat.

continued in part two...