Angela and Baron were married on March 18th, 2000, near New Orleans.

My biggest fear while planning my destination wedding was having bored guests standing around, or constantly being asked questions by the guests. I really wanted to try and find that balance between playing hostess -- and being the bride. We truly appreciated all of our family and friends who were traveling to join us on our special day -- and so I tried to think of a way to keep everyone organized -- and informed.

My solution was a wedding weekend booklet for our guests. We provided regional info about New Orleans and the specifics for all wedding activities. This really allowed everyone to feel comfortable with what was going on and make the most out of their free time. I also provided maps to everything -- I can't stress that enough.

We planned a day trip to the French Quarter in New Orleans on the Friday before our wedding. Trying to make ourselves as available as possible, we offered a time and place for both breakfast and lunch. If you didn't join for breakfast you still knew where to find us later. We also provided the menu for the rehearsal dinner -- so you wouldn't have for lunch what we were serving for dinner. These booklets were very appreciated because they answered a lot of questions - the bride will be overwhelmed with questions, especially at the rehearsal -- this helped keep them to a minimum.

Our booklets were about twenty pages long. We also provided our day trip menus, so everyone could see the price range (most restaurants have web sites). If I had started earlier I would have included a letter, suggested local "must see" places and probably a comment card. Since we started the booklet with our engagement picture and ended it with a note of thanks, they also served as wedding souvenirs. (Don't forget to visit Angela & Baron's website for more of their great planning ideas.)

For more information on New Orleans weddings, please visit the new Destination Weddings "FAQ".

Frommer's has a great wedding group airfare discount article online. Group travel discounts are available on American Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, US Airways, and Northwest/KLM, to name a few...

Don't forget to check out last month's destination wedding articles! The topics included Disney World and New Orleans weddings. Do you have a destination wedding article or summary that you'd like to see published? If so -- please submit it here.

Karen and Scott were married on June 29th, 2000 in Makena, Maui.

Why have a destination wedding on Maui? Very simply, we decided on a destination wedding to avoid both the politics and the over inflated expenses that goes with hosting a nice wedding affair in California, and to bring the wedding to "neutral grounds" for all of our guests.

We knew we wanted something special; a private wedding in a beautiful location and to be surrounded by people we love the most. But we realized quickly that was going to be a challenge as neither of us have any family living in California, yet this is where our life and most all of our friends are. To host a wedding here meant a great deal of traveling for our relatives. In all likelihood, only a few would be able to attend due to the high cost of traveling to California. And the same issue would be true for our friends if we didn't host a wedding locally. So we quickly realized no matter what location we picked we were not going to have everyone we care about the most attending.

We ruled out having a wedding in our area quickly. The Bay Area of California is rated as the second most expensive region in the world to marry, (New York being first), and we quickly discovered how true that was! And on top of that many places wanted to control your event, from the food, drink, decorations, music and more. At every location we looked at there were restrictions and rules that didn't fit into our plans or budget. No thanks!!

This left us with one option and a very simple solution; take the wedding to neutral grounds (where we can have a wedding exactly the way we want), then host some celebrations when we return. My father was the first to suggest we forgo the formal affair and instead marry in Hawaii, and the idea really just clicked. We were fairly sure we were going to honeymoon on Maui, so why not just get married there too?? Dad said he would be there, and for me that was most important.

We did some checking and realized you can have a beautiful wedding in Maui, hire a coordinator to set everything up for you just the way you want, and for no more then a song compared to a wedding in California. And Maui is rated the number one island to visit in the world! This was our perfect solution. From that moment on we knew we were not only going to get married, we were going to get "Maui'ed"! We notified everyone, set the date, and on June 29th we exchanged our marriage vows ocean-side in Makena, Maui. (Visit their website.)

For more information on Hawaiian weddings, check out the new Destination Wedding Webring "FAQ". And -- don't forget our recommended reading list!

Be sure to check back monthly for more great Destination Wedding and Eloping articles. And also join the Destination Wedding Message Board and Webring -- and read the Destination Wedding FAQ!