These Long Distance brides have some wonderful tips to share! They are successfully organizing and surviving planning a long distance wedding from afar. Are you looking to plan your own Long Distance Wedding? Not sure what to expect or how to go about doing so? Keep reading to hear some of their personal tips.

About our Brides

My name is Cassandra H. I live in Austin, TX and my fiancé lives in the Dallas area. We were planning on holding the wedding in Dallas but the Country Music Awards are in Dallas the weekend we wanted to host our wedding. So all of the hotels are booked!

We decided to have it in my hometown of Beaumont. It will be much cheaper than the Dallas wedding we were planning but it will be stressful to plan a wedding so far away from where I am. Luckily, I will be moving to the Dallas area with my fiance in August so I will be away from the wedding venue but not him anymore!


My name is Crystal R. I am planning a wedding from far away. Our wedding will be in Malaysia and I’m planning it from London/San Diego. Planning a wedding from far away makes everything that much more difficult, but the good part about that is that I have lots of places to source wedding ‘stuff’ from.

What Challenges Have You Faced?

Cassandra: I guess the major challenge was figuring out where to hold the wedding. I wanted Dallas because we will both be living there by the time of the wedding, but it just did not work out.

Another challenge was money. A wedding in Dallas would be so incredibly expensive. I am saving thousands of dollars having the wedding in Beaumont because my family has lived there for years and so they have the “hook up” with people in the area.

It is also challenging to plan such a big event while physically away from my fiancé and my family. It is hard for my mother and grandmother and sister to get very excited because they have not been part of the planning yet.

They were not with me when I tried on wedding dresses or when I bought my wedding dress. They haven’t even seen my ring yet because I have not had a chance to go visit them.

It is also hard trying to stay on the same base with my fiancé and his mother. I want her to be involved in the wedding planning but all I can really do is text her or call her to keep her involved. Also, as of right now, he hasn’t even been to Beaumont so he is agreeing to have the wedding somewhere he hasn’t been!


Crystal: My husband is deployed while I’m doing the planning planning. I consult him before every decision. I’ve put him in charge of things that he can do while deployed such as choosing the music. I continually ask him if there’s anything in particular he would like at the wedding. I take photos of everything – cakes, venue, invitations, deco, etc.

There will be 2-3 month gap between him coming home and the wedding so I’ve left some light DIY projects for him to get involved with. So he’s involved as can be considering the circumstances.

In addition to that, I am having a wedding for 500 people, with guests from around the world. It’s a two-day thing. We have a lot of family and friends in the states that we would love to have come to our wedding. However, it is a very expensive ticket so we know that a lot of them won’t be coming.

What’s your Advice to other LDR Brides-to-Be?

Cassandra: First off, get a separate email address for wedding stuff! I receive at least five emails every day from some wedding or honeymoon vendors because I signed up on a few wedding websites. They go to my personal email on my phone and it is so annoying!

Be completely open with your fiancé. We had the hardest time picking our colors because I am indecisive. When he was here for a weekend we spent thirty minutes in David’s Bridal looking at colors! He was so annoyed. After a while, we took some pictures and had some ideas and took a break.

Later, we looked at them and talked about what we liked. Unfortunately, the ones we chose that day were only our official colors for a week or two because I am indecisive and changed my mind again. But I was open about it to my fiancée so we talked about it and tried to find something we would both be happy with.

Don’t let wedding planning consume your time together. We went to a craft store and came up with ideas for our centerpieces and decided some other stuff about the wedding but I don’t want either of us getting run down and annoyed with wedding planning. While you are spending your precious time together, it is great to talk about the wedding, but not all the time! Save some time for yourselves and allow yourselves to enjoy each other’s company without the stress of the wedding planning.


Crystal: It’s never too early to start planning for anything, especially your wedding day. Time will creep up and it’s better to have something done with plenty of time to spare than to have lots of things not done with very little time to go.

photo © 2008 ididjeridoo, Flickr