How difficult is it to plan a US-wedding from the UK?

Say you have a year or year and a half to plan, and you take a couple of trips to the US to check out venues or whatever - is it possible? Has anybody successfully planned a wedding in the US while they were primarily residing in the UK?

Also, how do you manage to plan a wedding when the bride and groom live in separate countries 

What I would probably do, before I left the states is start looking around wedding sites such as theknot.com.  There is quite a bit of stuff there and just looking around can give you some ideas to rattle around in your brain.

Once you're engaged and if you're a few thousand miles from home you can find venues for the ceremony and reception, photographer, cake, food, everything that's within your budget.  And then ask someone you trust to check them out and give you her honest opinion.  For me it'd be my mother.  We looked around different locations and looked at different stuff before I left and we both decided that most of this we could probably do on our own... extreme DIY.    But it means we spend less, which is good.

There is much you can figure out from the UK and then, when you go to the States, take a few days and sign the contracts and pay the fees if that hasn't already been done by she-who-you-trust.  If you spend a few days with the intent on making decisions then I think you'll be fine.  It would probably also take away indecision.  You simply don't have time to debate over which shade of blue frosting you want on the cake.

I have a few sites from which you can buy flowers and stuff online for fairly cheap so you can pick a lot of what you want online and have it delivered to someone's house without even being in the US.  If you want, drop me a line and I'll PM you some URLs

It is definitely possible.  We planned a wedding in CA, while both living in London.  None of our family lived in CA, so we took two trips out there, over the course of a year, to do some planning like cake tasting, checking hotels for guests to stay at, florists etc.  The woman we worked with at the venue was awesome.  Very responsive and knowledgeable about other vendors (like florists etc), so she made it easy to just trust her and know the wedding would be awesome. 

If you don't have family/friends in the area you can rely on, be sure to ask the venue if you can have things like favors and special decorations shipped directly to them.  We took a lot of stuff over in our suitcases, as we had done all the place cards, menus and printed materials at home. 

 

Yes, it's possible. I planned my US wedding while I was in the UK and DH was in Dublin. I researched venues prior to a trip over and booked appointments so we didn't waste time. I asked friends and family for DJ, cake, flower, and musician referrals. We did the cake tasting in the same trip as securing the venue. The venue gave us referrals as well. I dealt with people over the phone and email. My sister helped a bit, but my mom was terrified to make any decision without me, so she helped when she felt comfortable. I did buy my dress in the UK because I found an awesome deal. My sister and the flower girl got their dresses when I was back for a trip.

You can do it, and it can be fun (it was for me!), it just depends on how organized you are.

Hire a wedding planner. My sister does this in Houston and it made all the difference in our wedding planning. They can hoof it to cake people, photographers, flower people etc. Negotiate prices and much more. Very handy for the details.

I was in Yorkshire and DW in NJ, originally she had the location in her town where she wanted the wedding. She'd even laid down a deposit, then when I went to visit she said she just wanted a small affair and maybe get married at the shore.
So we looked around online and finally settled for Amelia Island in Florida. We'd never been but it looked lovely. It was going to be a small affair at an historic B&B. The first place I contacted, they were away over the period we wanted but put us in touch with The Williams House instead. We looked at the website and photos and decided it looked really nice. I sent them an email to enquire and they said how much it cost for their wedding package and what additional options they had. I basically arranged it all with them via email, sent deposit via paypal. They arranged a local restaurant for us to have our wedding dinner, arranged flowers we wanted etc.
Couldn't have worked out better, we are planning to go back for our 10th anniversary.

I planned my California wedding from the UK and Kansas. I was lucky enough to be able to get back to California for a couple weeks before the wedding and stayed with some friends and family.

It was difficult, but not impossible. My main problem was actually posting the invitations - I hand made them in the UK but the majority of them went to people in the US. I didn't want to pay international on all of them, but luckily my sister visited and brought them back with her. My mom mailed them out from Kansas and took all the RSVPs there.

Two things made it do-able for me.
1. The actual ceremony site was my home church and they took care of me. They knew what was happening and obviously know the score for how a wedding ceremony goes, though they took a lot of input from me and my husband and it was still really personal and US.

2. The reception site was at my sister's house. We spent ages looking at venues online and I knew a lot of them from growing up in the town, but I couldn't afford any of the ones that were available. However, it was a blessing because my sister made things run so well and took care of us as well. I can't ever thank her enough.

Basically, having the other people involved on the ball made it okay. It wasn't easy (mostly because I had such a limited budget-all my money was going towards plane tickets and visa costs!) but in the end it was worth it to me. I had everyone there, I didn't have to pay the extra cost of a fiancee visa, and it was were I always dreamed it would be.

So...good luck! It's possible!

Our wedding in the US was quick & easy to set up...

1... Fly in .

2... Go to city hall & pay 60 bucks for a marrige licsence.

3... Go to Walmart & buy about 300 bucks worth of food & drink.

4... Get her ex sis inlaw (an ordained minister) to agree to marry us.

5... Invite family & freinds to " a bit of a party" .

6... Get married in the lounge.

7... Paaaaartyy !!

LoL.. We went over there to get married but had not planned one thing at all. It was all planned on the drive from DFW to Ft Smith. Quick , easy n simple & hand on my heart can say the happiest day of my life. It was everything we wanted it to be. But thats just us,, both no nonsense Country folk.

Certa.

I DID ALL THE PLANNING FOR MY WEDDING LESS THAN A MONTH BEFORE WE GOT MARRIED!

It was CRAZY!

I had had plenty of time to plan it before that, but I did nothing in the way of planning. Mostly because I was in my final semester of grad school, and my final paper, which was dependant upon a group project, became very complicated.

And, my wedding was lovely. My Maid of Honour helped a lot, but even she did not start planning anything until less than a month before the wedding! Because I did not decide on a venue, or the flowers, or the brides maid dresses... LOL!

ALL I HAD DONE WAS THE GUEST LIST.

Oh, and I knew the date!

I flew from London back to NYC exactly 15 days before the wedding, but my dad suddenly died the day after I got home, so for the first week, I was mostly focused on planning his funeral.

I almost changed my wedding date, because of my dad's passing, but everyone had already had their flights booked, so we just went ahead with it on that date.

I think if you give yourself that amount of time you can totally do it, even if it is a big wedding - and you can do it from anyplace.

My wedding party was about 60 people.