Tips & Advice
Destination wedding planning should include thoughts about showers for the happy couple. Since these are usually held far enough in advance of the actual wedding, you have plenty of time to enjoy them. Many of your shower attendees may not be able to travel with you to your destination wedding, so bring your wedding theme to them. They’ll appreciate being included in some of the wedding fun.
Start with your invitations. Invite guests to attend your “South of the Border” wedding with bright paper flowers with your date, time and place written on them. Or choose a plain card to write down the details, but decorate it with a Mexican beer bottle lid or dried chili peppers. For a swashbuckling Caribbean wedding, use an antiqued treasure map with clues on how to get to the shower, or your plain card with details and a bowman’s knot in one corner. Send a message in a bottle to shower guests to tell them where and when the event will be, or tie a sea shell to a plain card and sprinkle a little sand (or salt) in the envelope to bring guests to your Tropical Island destination wedding shower.
The place where the party is being held can be decorated to reflect the destination you chose for your wedding. With your south of the border style, choose a Mexican restaurant or adobe-style building for your party and decorate with lots of red. Line the walkway with metal luminarias cut out with cactus, chili peppers or sombreros. Serve authentic Mexican food with tortillas, salsa and other favorites, and decorate sombreros with flowers as centerpieces. Salsa music or a Mariachi band playing in the background is perfect for your south of the border shower. Play pin the tail on the donkey to choose whose gift to open first.
Welcome your guests to your pirate shower with a nautical theme. Old fishing nets and anchors help set the scene, with treasure chest centerpieces full of chocolate and fake gold and toy spyglass to find buried secrets will help to keep your guests in the right mood. String white Christmas tree lights along the walkway (or the plank), and offer an eye patch or pirate hat as each guest enters. Calypso music will get your guests dancing to the rhythm of your Treasure Island. Have a treasure hunt to find the shower gifts.
For your Tropical Island destination wedding shower, greet guests at the door with a tall cool pineapple drink and the traditional lei in bright colors. Create an indoor wonderland with a waterfall (mini is fine), lots of sea shells, fruits and tropical flowers, totem poles and torch lights. Light the walkways with hurricane lamps or hollowed out coconuts with votive candles inside, and use them as table decorations as well. Offer hula lessons, complete with grass skirts for the guests or have a limbo contest.
There are so many ways to have a fun shower that reflects your destination wedding. So get your friends together and have a blast. |
