Latest / Travel Agency in a Year / Day 156 - The DW Planning Process for TAs in 20 minutes
Transcript
- Rachel K: Welcome back to the Travel Agency New Year podcast. I'm your host, Rachel Kay. And we're on day 156. I'm gonna talk about the destination wedding planning process. It's this is like actually planning a destination wedding, not just heavily relying on the in destination day of coordinator. I do have a course all about this. It's called Become a Destination Wedding Concierge. If you are interested in actually planning the event side. and I go over that the difference between a planner and a coordinator and a designer. And there's day of, week of, and month of coordinators. I will say right now, most of the coordinators that are included, your on-site dedicated coordinator that you see in wedding packages, that is like a two month coordinator. They're really there to coordinate the different vendors that are approved through the resort. And that's about it. And so why I'm going into this is what I'm saying. I had probably 10 years in the wedding industry, just like locally, before I got into travel and started doing destination weddings. And I knew I wanted to offer destination wedding planning because I looked at my competition and it would it's literally people charging $500 to a thousand dollars to throw a room block contract together. ⁓ and like minimal assistance with planning events. And I was like, ⁓ well I can do that and I can charge a higher fee and I can like get a lot of business and it worked. And then I started teaching some other agents like that were on my team that are on their own now the same thing. And actually one of them just got their first six thousand dollar fee for it. So it's a very lucrative thing to get into like actually knowing how to plan a wedding, not sending them to the resort and maybe having like one off site vendor. ⁓ there's a lot of intricacies to wedding planning. So anyway, this episode is going to be a quick overview of the destination wedding plan is planning process, tips for travel advisors. If you are interested in really being authority in the wedding industry, what my experience has been. And general timelines of what you can expect to help your bride andor groom or both, whatever, ⁓ your couples. With their destination weddings. So this is just even if you just want to like level up your destination wedding services. That's what this episode's about. You don't have to do the full planning. If you wanna if you want to, head over to elevate with rachelk dot com, click on the courses, go enroll and become a destination wedding concierge. You can do that and I teach you Which flowers are local in other in certain areas and how to select off site vendors that are reputable and not gonna rip you off and how to vet them and create your own vendors list. And that's another revenue stream, by the way. In some cases, sometimes they refer send you referral fees. how you can save your money or save your couples money for their events budget by using off site vendors, even with the vendor fees. There's all of that in there and so much more. ⁓ anyway, this is just like the k glossy overview. Now in the course I talk about I like to plan weddings fifteen to eighteen months as my sweet spot. If it's more than twenty-four months out, chances are that couple most likely will end things before the wedding. If it's under twelve months, if you do offer planning services, it's gonna feel a little more rushed and hectic. So I like the sweet spot of fifteen to eighteen months out. Because you can secure your offsite vendors if you're using them, which a lot of the couples that I've worked with have never used the resorts hair and makeup team, never really use the resorts photography team. sometimes I help them get like custom favors created in destination, things like that. So you can secure those offsite vendors. You can secure pricing sometimes. Sometimes you can like if you Start the planning process and you get a quote, let's say around 15 months out. This is why they all pulled back, I think, because I'd be like, nah, coordinator, you told me it was eleven hundred dollars for this eight months ago. And then they'd be like, price change, like, not when it's in writing. So, ⁓ but you can secure some pricing in advance. If you get that far out and you can sense Ever if you've been in the wedding industry, you know every two to three years the packages slightly change or the and or the price changes. Usually it increases. So you can lock in like those sweet, sweet AMR Beyond Memorable pro packages. ⁓ man, those were the bees' knees. You could lock those in. And I I remember I was still securing them in 2022 for 2024 weddings. And ⁓ the dates weren't even open yet on the calendars for resorts, like some dreams properties, but I had done enough weddings with the one that they wanted to go with that they held the date for my couple. And we could go ahead with the room block, which saved their guests so much money. All right. You get more time for them to readjust their budgets and their wants. Cause guess what? That always happens. That always happens. I would say anymore 60% of the time when I was doing my weddings and consultations. I'm phasing out of that now. When I got someone 18, 19 months out and they're like, I just really want simple decor. It's gonna be so easy. Or if they were like right under a year out and they'd say that, they would completely change their minds. This is why I don't like the under a year, because I'd be like, all right, here's your estimated budget, like costs for all of this. And then they'd be like, well I need a million dollars in flowers now. And it's like, ugh Okay. But it gives them more time to readjust their budget and their wants. It also gives their guests more ch time. If you can secure their wedding date around fifteen months out, and then you can set up the block and get the invitations. They get their invitations in the mail and you can introduce yourself via email to all the guests around twelve months. That gives guests usually eight or nine months or so to make payments towards their stay and make that commitment. Okay. So if you are gonna do anything with the planning side, make sure you have a checklist with deadlines and make sure you have them sign off on anything finalized that you're involved in. typically what I do if I if I introduce them to I don't what I will do, here's what I do. when I'm doing like any off site vendors or just vendors in general, their preferred vendors, I introduce the couple to them. I review everything with them. And normally the contracts are fine. There's nothing s fishy. I've only caught like two or three contracts that were fishy. And then I'll say like you gotta make all the decisions. That's in my contract anyway when a couple signs on with me. Like you make all the decisions. but make sure you have deadlines. So here's a general list of deadlines, if you care at all. Real easy peasy. Twelve months out, these are my preferences. Then they're easy to follow. This is why I like the 15 to 18 month timeline. 12 months out, save the dates or at least in the mail. their wedding date's clearly secured because they have the save the dates. Your room block is pretty well set up, and you can send the email out inviting everyone to check out the booking page and start reserving their rooms. I like to do that starting around 12 months out. Like I said, gives people time. To budget for the trip, understand like this is how much it's gonna cost. I have this much time to save up, not necessarily hold their room, make payments towards me, or not me, the supplier for the room block. ⁓ but they have that option as well. Okay. Nine months out, off-site vendors, specifically photography and videography services, because they are very popular and they do book up. And so you want. Around nine months, they're securing that contract if they aren't the resort's preferred photography team. I don't like, excuse me. I don't like referring DJs. I just use the resort that just use the resorts DJ. I had somebody do that. They were in a Facebook group, some other travel agency just collects commission off referrals from some fake DJ that got banned. And My one of my couples hired that DJ. And I was like, don't do it, man. It's a trick. Did you not see this contract? Good luck getting your ⁓ money back. And then he got banned from that property. And they lost that money. But so then I had to go to the resort and negotiate with them. Like, can you discount your DJ services? Because the stupid travel agency that thinks that they own your property is Making commission off this other DJ who was drunk and setting off fireworks inside the ballroom. And that's why he got banned. ⁓ man, the stories. Anyway, they honored it. They're a really good company. Okay, six months out. This is when I like to have like have your final decor decisions done. Don't change anything because from here on out it is. ⁓ confirming it with like the florist and the decorators and there's often a language barrier and don't make any last minute changes because it's gonna confuse them and it's gonna get more frustrating for you to have to constantly have the budget summaries updated and that you sign off on for the decor. And it's like just have it done. Have the offsite vendors approved at this point. Like just have it done. Don't worry about it anymore. Stop going on Pinterest. Stop going on TikTok and TikTok and Instagram and getting influenced. Three months. Finalize any off-site events. That's when you start the process. I typically don't get them finalized. ⁓ it takes maybe a couple weeks, but that's when I start saying, hey, are you sure you want to do this ⁓ private party boat excursion? Like we need to get this deposited. Make sure you have the date secured and have the headcount. So I do things in between before that before that three month deadline. ⁓ I should probably do an episode on the day of timeline. I'll do the day of timeline next. Oof, okay. I'll do one on the day of timeline. Even though most of you are like, I don't care about any of this. So, as an example, if they want to like a private party boat, I like to ask them between this three and six month mark, are you considering this? Here's some companies I recommend. I can reach out to them, get updated brochures, whatever, if unless I already have them, then I just send them on. do you want to do this just for the family and bridal party or just the family? Or do you want to do this for everyone as a thank you? I need to know these things. What day would you like to have this? And then I start communicating with that company to start setting that up. And if they're like, we're not sure who wants to go, then I create a form to send to all the guests and be like, Are you gonna do the boat right or not? And sometimes. The couples will just pay for the entire boat ride. Other times, the couple will pay for the boat ride in full for the private boat ride. And then they'll ask people to Venmo or what Cash App or I don't know, whatever the heck they like to do. So then when I sub when I send out those forms, I want to make sure I know for sure if they have to pay the couple back, you know? So I'll put something in writing like, please have if you are coming, please be sure to send eighty five dollars to the couple, no later than whatever the heck date, thirty days prior, like ru before they're before they have to pay the full thing, you know. And before we have to secure the final headcount for the private party boat. So that way we can like it they can like, ⁓ yeah, I'm totally coming. But if they don't make payment arrangements with the couple, I don't want to risk that weird beef, right? So I have all that on the form as well. Those are the kinds of things I do in between. Okay, two months out, finalize the day of timeline. Day of timeline, I'll just do an episode on that tomorrow. If you care about anything about destination weddings. And then one month out, I finalize my guest itineraries. I personally use Travify. I think you can do the same thing in turn. And the grouped app is a really good resource as well for like group travel management. So there's like multiple ways to do it. ⁓ so I will finalize the full itinerary of like all of the events from the day of timeline, like pictures with mom, getting ready photos, first look with dad, like whatever the heck that is they've got. And I'll go more in depth tomorrow, like I said. And I the bride and groom get the entire thing and they approve the copy. They approve, like this is good. And then I make the other Travifies and just like drag and drop who gets what, right? Okay. Then I send everything out two weeks prior. Good to go. So that is like a general planning timeline. If you do do destination weddings, if you do do. ⁓ and they just have questions. Using this information to like kind of guide them is gonna be very, very helpful for them to stay on track and be able to get everything paid and make sure that they get the vendors that they want. Cause some of them do book out like a year in advance or close to it. That's why I'm saying the offsite vendors, specifically photographers. ⁓ you wanna do around nine months out. It's very important to secure photography. I also like I've got a planning timeline that I send to the couples and I will have engagement photos like around 14 months out so that they can be on the save the dates if they want to or the invitations. And I have them start thinking about do they want to use that same photographer for their destination wedding. So I have them thinking about photography like almost immediately. And here's why. Because photography teams are not photography teams except at the resorts. When they're at the res des When they're at the resorts, you can't guarantee specific style or specific flow. They have the same contracted out ⁓ photographers, but they will have additional ones that are just like random photographers that get on the list. And they get paid as contractors, right? That's typically how most resorts work with their photography team. So you can't guarantee a specific Outcome editing style, you just you're only guaranteed so much time of coverage and then so many photos or whatever's in the package, right? And there's no like re-edits, whatever. And more and more people are like hyper specific on the style of photography. And when you get hyper specific, like I want editorial photo shoot, or I want it to be all candid, or I want a super romantic edit. editing style or hyper realistic or like dark fantasy like photographers have different styles and different methods of how they shoot and do their editing. and they're often like, ⁓ husband and wife team at best. That's why you need to, if they want off site photography, you should consider nine months. They should have that secured. Okay, that's that episode. You're like, I didn't care about any of this. I hope you found it interesting at least. And if you do, like say you don't do a lot of destination weddings, but maybe you get one, I hope you can come back to this episode. Drill it in your brain. Day 156. Tomorrow we're gonna go over the timeline for a wedding day. Thanks for listening. Have a good day.