Save Money by Keeping Your Shipping Costs Down for Your Island Wedding by Using More of What’s Locally Available
Hi Everybody!
If you could see the mess I’m working in today, you would understand why I haven’t been blogging! We moved into new offices this month and everything is still under construction. Now you have to understand that time moves at a different pace down here — I may be able to get vendors to wedding events on time, but trying to get a contractor or repairman to show up at my office building is another story entirely. As I write this, Bill and Jim are installing blinds in the staff office next to me (if you’ve never heard a hammer-drill in concrete, it’s a really special experience!). I’m waiting for the AC installation guy and he has to somehow coincide with the guy from the machine shop who will install the wrought-iron (called rayhas) bars around my window air conditioner so it doesn’t find itself a new home the same night we install it! Ahhh, living in the Caribbean is so much fun. At least it’s always an adventure! 
Later this afternoon Michael will finish building the new flower assembly area in the storeroom and Yanira will be here to stuff welcome bags for next week’s wedding group. Brianna Grant and Matt Rothman are getting married on Saturday, November 7th, and we’re in full prep mode for their wedding on top of renovating and organizing office space! But all this organizing is what inspired today’s blog. Weddings in Vieques has acquired a ridiculous amount of wedding crapola from working for so many clients!!! And it made me think about how much money clients spend mailing stuff down here for their destination weddings. One bride last summer sent more than 15 enormous boxes of stuff ahead of her arrival. And then she paid to ship most of it back! Whenever possible, try to work with your wedding planner to beg, borrow, purchase or rent everything you need for your destination wedding weekend.
I’ve been sorting through the contents of the two storage boxes we occupied prior to this move and I’m constantly amazed by what I find. Some of this stuff we rent to clients, some we just let you use, some of it is leftover from another bride who didn’t take it back with her and you end up the beneficiary. However we came to have it, the good news is that we have it — and you’re not going to have to spend hundreds of dollars shipping it down here for yourself.
Some examples of the sort of items I’m talking about:
- Vases — we have short ones, tall ones, round ones, square ones, rectangle ones, hurricane-style, fishbowls (large and small), and more. We even have some funky vases that can’t have water in them — go figure that one! LOL
- Fairy Lights — you may call them Christmas lights, but I think “fairy lights” is a nicer term for wedding purposes. Whatever you call them, it’s going to be the main source of lighting for your event at the vast majority of wedding venues on Vieques or Culebra Island. We have thousands of lights, and we ask every client to bring down a few hundred more to donate to the stash. We figure that a couple of strands die every wedding so we stay more or less even. Every once in awhile we do a large purchase of several thousand new lights.
- Tiki Torches — we have the really nice black iron ones, rather than the cheesy basket-style you usually see at backyard barbecues. And we fill them with citronella tiki oil to help create a safe, well-lit, bug-free area for your outdoor events. They also look gorgeous lining the aisle at your ceremony and marking the entrance to the villa where your reception is being held.
- Arches and Chuppahs — yep, we’ve got those too. They can be decorated in a variety of ways using fresh flowers, fabrics, ribbon and other fun things. And remember, chuppahs aren’t just for Jewish weddings anymore — everybody has been using them! It’s really just a beautiful square structure to get married under — it’s not really a chuppah unless there is a talis used for the top and the officiant is a rabbi.
- Table decor — seaglass (blue and green and white and purple), river rocks, starfish, seashells, sand dollars, and a zillion other weird and wonderous items you can use to decorate your table tops at your wedding reception. We’ve also got a variety of random linens that we use when somebody wants a color other than the standard white offered by the local rental company.
- Welcome bags and stuff to put in them — we’ve got beach bags and beer cozies and sunblock with Vieques Island’s map on them. And we go out and buy snacks and bottled water and stuff like that to put in them for our clients before we stuff bags, there’s no reason to ship that sort of stuff down here unless you want something really specific like mini-bags of Swedish fish or something like that.
When I got married in Vieques five years ago, there wasn’t a wedding planner here and I had to do it all myself. Fortunately, I’d taken over the Hacienda Tamarindo for my wedding group and there were kind enough to let me ship things ahead to them. And I did. In fact, I think I shipped something ridiculous like 20 boxes. I’m totally not exaggerating. I spent a fortune — both on the crap I put in the boxes and what I spent to mail them down here. I mailed down the wedding favors, wedding party gifts, guest book, welcome bags, goodies for inside the welcome bags, placecards, wedding programs, etc. I even mailed down small bags of chips and cookies purchased at Costco. And let’s not forget the cocktail napkins, linen-like hand towels and decks of playing cards personalized with our names, wedding date and signature scallop shell that graced everything from the invitations to beach bags. I soooo overdid it. If I had it to do over again… wow, I could have done my wedding for half as much as I spent. But this is about you, not about me. It’s relevant because I hope you learn from my mistake and limit yourself as to how much stuff you actually do mail to your wedding destination.
If you absolutely positively must have a specific vase in the center of your dinner tables that you saw in a specific magazine and hunted down at the store, then go for it. Coordinate with your wedding planner, order it, and have it shipped directly to your wedding destination if possible (why pay to have it shipped to you and then pay again to have it shipped to me?). But if you are more open minded about your decor, you can save yourself a whole lot of money by being flexible in what you choose to use for your decor. Don’t settle for something less than what you really want — I’m not saying that. I’m just encouraging you to talk to your wedding planner about what you’re envisioning and see what she suggests that may meet or exceed your expectations without you spending all your new shoe money on shipping for your wedding favors. You may be surprised what your local options are for welcome gifts, reception favors, gift baskets, decorations, and everything else that relates to your wedding weekend.
And remember, whatever you ship to your destination wedding island is either going to stay there or cost you a lot of time and money to send back afterwards. Whether you have a wedding planner or not, nobody is going to pack up and ship whatever you’ve sent down for your wedding weekend for free. If you’re shipping everything to yourself at your hotel, pack tape and shipping labels and whatever else you’re going to need to send things back to yourself after the wedding weekend. These items aren’t always readily available when you finally think of them when you’re packing the night before you return home. If you have to have somebody else pack and ship your items back to you, it’s expensive in both postage and labor.
Finally, if you do have something in mind that you’re going to have to purchase and ship down, ask your wedding planner if there are any other brides considering the same decor options. Sometimes you’re choosing a decor that’s “hot” for the season and we may not have the items yet because nobody’s ever requested it before. But if you saw it in Martha Stewart or read about it on The Knot, then odds are that other brides are requesting some of the same things. It’s possible that you might be able to coordinate with another bride who wants to use the same lantern theme or centerpiece baskets. It never hurts to ask, right?
Okay, I’ve gotta get back to work now — all of the new furniture is supposed to arrive tomorrow (why don’t I believe that?) and I need to get the office ready so they have someplace to bring it in. Until next time, happy wedding planning from Weddings in Vieques and Weddings in Culebra. Come get married on the jewel of the Spanish Virgin Islands!
Sandy