Why an Itinerary for Your Destination Wedding Guests is Important

As you start planning your destination wedding events you’ll realize quite a few of your guests will need to be in the know as well. They’ll all need to be made aware of not only the wedding festivities themselves, but any welcome activities, group excursions, or dinners. This is where we strongly recommend a wedding itinerary in order to make sure your family, wedding party, and all your guests are aware of everything they need to be in attendance for.

A wedding itinerary will basically be a schedule for all of your guests that’s given to them as they check into the resort. It will outline the date, time and location for anything they want to attend or are specifically invited to.

Below we’ll go over the biggest perks of having a destination wedding itinerary, as well as an example of one from my own destination wedding for some inspiration.

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Avoid questions from your guests

• Are you having a wedding rehearsal?
• What time do I need to be ready by on Saturday?
• Can I plan an excursion for the family or is there something else going on?

These were all questions I received as we approached our wedding trip as our guests weren’t aware they’d be receiving an itinerary once they got to the resort. Of course they want to make sure they don’t miss out on anything going on, but you do not want to be bombarded with constant questions throughout your stay.

This is where an itinerary for every guest as they arrive at the resort is important and crucial. It lays out every little thing they plan on attending as soon as they get there.

By the way, are you not sure on what activities you want to have for you and your destination wedding guests? Check out our post, “6 Fun Activities for your Guests During your Destination Wedding” for some ideas!

Here is the template of the itinerary from our destination wedding. Some things were meant for only the wedding party or family, while others were an open invite to everyone who came for our wedding. This way everyone was aware of where they needed to be and when (and wives could help husbands make sure they were in attendance for everything they needed to be. 😉 )

Need help creating an itinerary? Sites like Etsy, Shutterfly, and Minted will have plenty of templates.

Invites your guests to share on social media

Another perk of having an itinerary for your wedding guests is sharing your wedding hashtag (if you have one) for them to post on social media. Just include some information on what the hashtag is and how to add it to any social media posts they make. That way you don’t miss out on any pictures or posts your friends and family made during your wedding trip if they didn’t specifically tag you.

This one a really fun aspect of our destination wedding that I wasn’t expecting. At the end of each day I’d hop on Instagram and search #becomingbuse to find fun pictures my friends and family were posting throughout their stay.

Make it easy on your guests

This also helps your guests with making plans as well. If anyone is thinking of doing an excursion or getting a message, they know certain times that aren’t going to work for them and planned accordingly. We had multiple guests do excursions throughout our trip and I could be as ease knowing that they were planning them around all of our events for the week.

Some of these things your guests will be aware of in advance. You may have provided a date on your invitations, but they may not have been detailed enough to include a time of your ceremony, cocktail hour, or dinner. Laying it all out on a simple schedule as soon as they get there will give them comfort and peace of mind for the remainder of the trip.

How to distribute

We recommend giving your on-site wedding coordinator a heads up about your itineraries before you get to the resort. That way they’re at least made aware of them and might appoint someone specifically to make sure each of your guests receives one.

For us, we gave them to the front desk and they were taken care of from there. As each of our guests checked in the front desk was aware that they were there for our wedding and gave one to them with their room key. There was so much peace of mind knowing everyone was getting all the information they needed right away. And then we were able to see everyone together at the cocktail hour we held later on!

Do you plan on having a destination wedding itinerary for your guests? Drop a comment below or contact me here!