一个新娘从计划自己的目的地婚礼中学到了什么
by理查德·德·安布罗西奥(Richard D'Ambrosio)/
A few weeks after her February 2016 Punta Cana destination wedding, Beth Eibler Johnston found herself retired, newly remarried and settled into a Michigan winter.
Ever since she and her husband Dan Johnston got engaged in 2014, she was preoccupied with planning her wedding, including the myriad and complex tasks that come with hosting 30 family members and friends, 1,800 miles away in the Caribbean.
With time to finally breathe and think, she asked herself: “What will I do now?” The last thing Eibler Johnston thought was that in less than a year, she would be helping other brides plan and book their destination weddings. She contacted her travel agent, Tami Santini, owner at Paradise Getaways in Portage, Michigan, to ask if she had any part-time work that could be done from home.
“Tami said, ‘No, but how would you like to be an independent contractor in my host agency?’” Eibler Johnston recalled.
Santini said she felt that Eibler Johnston had the right mix of skills and passion to succeed, and by January 2017, Beth’s Beautiful Getaways in Pinckney, Michigan, was launched, focusing on honeymoons and destination weddings.
“It’s really unique for Beth to be in a position to know what a bride is going through,” Santini said. “For Beth to have that connection with a couple, that she can say ‘I know how you feel,’ and walk them through the process from a personal understanding is great.
都是个人的
在2014年12月订婚之前,乔nstons had traveled extensively and Beth knew that if she did get married again, she wanted it to be on the beach, someplace warm, away from the Michigan winter.
在丹提出建议之后,贝丝在圣诞节假期花了一些时间研究她的加勒比海选择,很快发现自己不知所措。她还没有完全退休,她正在平衡计划与她的教学职责。
“I decided early on I needed someone to help me figure this out. Somehow, my online search turned up Tami, but it was the way she cared so much on that first call that gave me the confidence that she was the right person to help,” she remembered.
这是艾伯勒·约翰斯顿(Eibler Johnston)的第一堂课:您的客户可以来自任何地方,但最终,与您个人的联系是将关闭销售的原因。“就是那个分享和来回分享。我们点击了。”
收集选项
“我想要一个美丽的海滩参加婚礼和我们的照片。丹想在婚礼前一天打高尔夫球。无论塔米研究什么,她都知道我们必须两者都有。”艾伯勒·约翰斯顿说。
Santini在Punta Cana提供了一个硬岩度假村。巴哈马的凉鞋度假胜地;以及同时在多米尼加共和国的天堂帕尔马皇家高尔夫和水疗度假胜地。
“硬石punta cana对我的喜好有点太大。当时我的妈妈是78岁,我不想让她走很多。”艾伯勒·约翰斯顿说。“凉鞋度假胜地有一个格雷格·诺曼(Greg Norman)高尔夫球场,但我不想在2月的巴哈马(Bahamas)如此凉爽,因为我仍在教书,所以我们被锁定了那个周末。对我来说,这一切都是关于海滩的样子。”他们定居在天堂上。
艾伯勒·约翰斯顿(Eibler Johnston)说:“这是一个好的策划者所做的。”“他们倾听有关新娘和新郎所需的内容的所有内容,并审查了一小部分选择。这种经历教会了我真正听取客户的意见以及他们在说什么。您喜欢仅成人吗?食物对您有多重要?您在寻找什么?”
您的地面游戏怎么样?
The same way that brides will visit their catering hall or wedding venue during the planning process, it is exponentially important for them (or their agent) to make a site visit when the wedding is being held nearly 2,000 miles away, and where the locals may speak English as a second language, Eibler Johnston said.
“This was especially useful with my mom traveling. At her age, I needed to feel comfortable what her experience would be like getting from the airport to the resort. What assistance would she need on the property getting to the events? Those little things are big things for a bride,” Eibler Johnston said.
她称赞像凉鞋这样的度假胜地,该度假村将为夫妻提供打折的婚礼前访问。
“You can use that time to meet with the onsite photographer and scope out the shots you want, and how many, talk to catering, taste the food, see what the nightlife is like,” she said.
事先开会,艾伯勒·约翰斯顿(Eibler Johnston)与摄影师合作,向儿子向女友提出了惊喜。“我们想确保他知道这是必须做的,并为此计划。”
即便如此,艾伯勒·约翰斯顿(Eibler Johnston)在准备好时从未和母亲在酒店房间里拍照。她说:“这些是您没有回来的记忆,错过了这个机会,我对此很敏感,并将尽可能多地帮助新娘计划。”
艾伯勒·约翰斯顿(Eibler Johnston)也有机会参观婚礼地点,并计划了公共海滩以外的任何潜在问题。“新娘需要知道度假胜地不能阻止人们进入海滩。如果他们不舒服,也许他们想要花园婚礼。访问时,您会感觉到这些东西。”
Sweat the details
Finally, Eibler Johnston also thinks that having gone through this experience, she plans for things that could go wrong. For example, some all-inclusive restaurants require dining reservations.
“Depending on the size of your party, if you don’t make reservations far enough in advance, they might not be able to accommodate you and all of your guests at the same seating,” she said, recounting how that happened at her destination wedding.
“We ended up with eight reservations here, ten reservations there, and I was dealing with the stress of who was going where, and whether everyone would be happy with what I chose. Find out the policy ahead of time,” Eibler Johnston advises.
Trip insurance is another biggie, Eibler Johnston said. “We had one guest who needed it and benefitted from having it, and one who didn’t purchase it and had a problem.”
最后,艾伯勒·约翰斯顿(Eibler Johnston)认为,即使您不为他们预订他们的航班,目的地婚礼专家也应要求所有客人提供所有航空公司的信息。在她的案子中,她的年迈母亲最初将伴随着艾伯勒·约翰斯顿(Eibler Johnston)的一个兄弟,她的航班被相应地预订。但是她哥哥的雇主不能给他休假,需要改变飞行。
“As a bride’s go-to agent, I would want to take that trouble completely off her shoulders, so it would be easier if I just had everything on behalf of all her guests.”