Preparation is the key motto to live by when planning a destination wedding.

“Anything you take with you, I would always recommend to have as ready as possible,” Canada says. “For example, we just did a destination wedding in Lake Tahoe. With the cold weather, the bride and groom gave pashmina wraps to guests. We steamed them, rolled them and shipped them, because it takes several hours to roll a hundred pashminas. Things like that you could do a couple months out.”

Canada says enlisting friends to assist with pre-wedding preparations is a nice way to capitalize on any offers to help.

“I, it seems, like everyone else in America, watch these wedding shows, and I’m always surprised when I see a planner who’s putting things in the bags or tying things on [gift] bags at the last minute, when things like that could have been way done ahead of time,” Canada says.

party favors

“You can get really creative as far as what you give people,” Canada says. One of the biggest trends her firm has seen is the inclusion of destination-appropriate gift bags for guests.

“We have a bride who is getting married in Mexico [and is giving] guests little mini margarita kits, so people can make margaritas in their hotel rooms,” Canada says.

Providing guests with items they may have forgotten, like sunblock, is not only practical but can also help relay the unique feel of your destination. The point is to make guests feel cared for.

If running into grandma at the hotel pool while engaging in some post-wedding canoodling with your new spouse isn’t an experience you’d like to have, Canada says that’s definitely food for thought. “If you are having a destination wedding and you want to roll your honeymoon into that, you might want to think about changing locations or hotels, because a lot of your guests may also be looking at it as a vacation,” Canada says. “So, if you don’t want to run into your mom and dad or your aunt or uncle at a resort, that’s something to factor in.”

While Canada says the “it” wedding destinations this season include Mexico and Hawaii, Arizona is also a premier place to get hitched. “When we live here, I don’t know if we necessarily consider it as a destination wedding, but about 50 percent of our clients are destination brides,” Canada says. “We have a ton of people who come here who know the weather is going to be great. And the resources we have, in terms of all the resorts and locations—it’s a great place to have a destination wedding.”