Are you good with details? Do you have time to be on the phone with vendors in Paris during their work hours? If not, you might want to consider hiring a wedding planner.
Bridal couples strolling the streets in Paris usually look pretty calm. Did someone plan their wedding for them?
Planning a wedding — any wedding — is hard work. You decide on a wedding date, a theme, a guest list, your wedding attendants and attire, ceremony and reception venues, flowers, music. It’s a lot to pull together. Now, consider the headache those details might give you and multiply it by 10: for those not detail-oriented, this is what you might face if you’re planning a destination wedding in Paris, given the distance and time and language differences. Perhaps you should consider hiring a wedding planner and let them have headaches for you. Here is information on three destination wedding planning services.
1. Destination Weddings.com. According to their website, Destination Weddings.com has planned over 20,000 destination weddings and is an award-winning, Certified Destination Wedding Specialist. They’ve planned weddings in 100 regions and 42 countries. What I really like about them is that you can talk to a live human being during the planning process and they offer 24/7 emergency travel support. Your wedding dress didn’t arrive at your destination? Your flower vendor has shown up with the wrong flowers? They give you someone to contact to handle those details.
To get started, you create your profile by providing information like your name, how many guests you expect, your wedding date (even approximate), and the destinations you’re considering. They assign you a wedding planner suited to your needs.
The only thing I didn’t like when I did research for this post was that when I called and asked them how they can provide their services 100% free…the customer service person didn’t want to answer my question! One would think this would be straightforward: are their services free or aren’t they? Turns out you pay $50 to get started and the fee is recouped by being applied to services paid for; Destination Weddings.com is paid a commission from those services. You don’t have to use their Preferred Partners (hotels and the like) to take advantage of their service, but they do have a Preferred Partner Perks program in which you can get value-added amenities.
Destination Weddings.com
Phone: 1-888-536-1923, Monday – Thursday, 9:00 A.M. – 8:00 P.M., EST
Friday, 9:00 A.M. – 7:00 P.M., EST
(This is if you want to speak someone up front.)
2. Perfect Paris Wedding.com. The company is owned by a Parisian named Claire Bay. She is not only a wedding planner but also a celebrant (someone who conducts weddings). She also works with two other celebrants.
Perfect Paris Wedding offers three packages: 1) Eiffel Tower Wedding (outdoors); 2) Notre Dame Wedding (outdoors); and 3) Paris Chateau Wedding (indoors). (Note: Paris Chateau is a specific place and was once owned by Louis XV.) In addition to ceremony photos, the outdoor packages include a 2-hour chauffeur-driven photo-tour around Paris with a professional photographer; you have your photo taken at sites such as Place de la Concorde and Trocadero (near the Eiffel Tower).
The Paris Chateau Wedding package includes ceremony photos, a shoot in the chateau and grounds, plus a photo session around the Louvre.
The standard price for the outdoor packages is 2,600 euros (with a conversion rate of $1.08 to 1 euro, that’s $2,808.00); for the indoor Paris Chateau package it’s 3,950 euros ($4,266.00). Included in the standard package:
*Symbolic Ceremony
* Commemorative Wedding Certificate
* Luxury Wedding Vehicle & Chauffeur
* Professional Photographer
*Bride’s bouquet, hair & make-up
You can also add extras.
The site is easy to navigate. You complete a form to get a quote, which is not binding. As a test, I selected the Paris Chateau package, with a wedding date of Saturday, June 11, 2016 (dates are input in European style, DD/MM/YY), 20 guests, a tailor-made ceremony (extra for 150 euros), a half-bottle of champagne for a wedding toast (extra 50 euros), a Day-of bilingual coordinator (extra 350 euros), with a departure date 1 week from wedding date. My quote: 4,500 euros ($4,860.00).
Perfect Paris Wedding.com
Office Hours: Monday – Friday, 10:00 A.M. – 3:00 P.M., Central European Time
A phone number is not offered on the site for questions.
3. Wedding Light Events.com. Wedding Light Events.com offers luxury wedding planning and other services; for an elopement of just a wedding couple, they suggest a budget of 5,000 euros ($5,400.00 with current conversion rate), and for 50 guests they suggest 25,000 euros ($27,000). They believe in making your event unique rather than offer every couple the same package.
According to their site, an elopement package of (presumably) 5,000 euros includes:
*Officiant
*Ceremony location
*Professional Photographer – Olivier Lalin, whose work has appeared in The New York Times
*Restaurant reservations
*Planning fees
Oddly, after “restaurant reservations” there is an “etc.” If ever there is a time to be exact, this is it.
Their venue selections are as follows:
*Paris Outdoors – at Paris landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower, Pont de Alexandre III, the Louvre
*Luxury Hotels – such as Shangri-La, Hotel de Vendome, and Hotel de Crillon
*Chappelle Expiatoire – a beautiful chapel commissioned by Louis XVIII
*Riding Along the Seine – in a boat on the Seine River
The company recommends at least 12 months to plan a wedding, 18 months if you want a popular ceremony or reception venue. For smaller events, such as a couple-only elopement, they can probably take you last minute.
To get started, you complete an easy form requesting your name and contact information, general time period for event, number of guests, and specific needs; you can request a time for a conversation via telephone or Skype. (The site does not offer a phone number to call.) You can also contact them by email: info@weddinglightevents.com.
Hope this helps. My Destination Wedding in Paris series will continue next Friday with a post about developing your wedding timeline.
Au revoir!
Image of Bridal Couple with Moms by Dustin Diaz, Flickr, CCBY 2.0.