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I'm planning in a similar situation. My recommendations:
- choose a location that will actually be interesting for your guests. I'm doing the coast north of wine country, so people actually want to come (fly into SF, drive through Sonoma, stay on coast...sounds nice, right?). It feels great for people to actually be excited, not just coming out of obligation.
- send out STDs, and do it as soon as you can.
- really, really consider a coordinator, or at least a day of coordinator. Life savers, worth every penny.
- consider your guests' accomodations and transportation while making plans.
We are in the reverse situation. Planning on the east coast but FI's family and friends are all in CA. Agree with @monitajb, make sure to provide as much info as you can for out-of-town guests - maybe block hotel rooms or create website where you can list fun things to do in the area.
Also, it is really nice that since it is somewhat of a "desintation" wedding, we are finding that many of our guests are deciding to extend their trips and come a few days before the wedding which will give us much more time to spend with those we don't see as often.
Well you are pretty much having a destination wedding so make sure you get your STD's out as soon as possible.
I totally agree with PP - send out all information as early as possible, send out save the dates at least 6 months prior (I would recommend even earlier if you really want people to come), make a wedding website providing information about hotels, transportation (airports), weather, etc!
Our wedding is in Texas and we have been planning form D.C. and Chicago. Family and friends are flying from everywhere: california, seattle, new york, florida, etc. Theyve all said the best thing we did was get the date and travel information to them in enough time that allowed proper planning!
We're in a VERY similar situation (planning for wedding in LA; family & friends in HI, CO, MA, WA, SF, & DC...only 20% are local!) & I totally agree with PPs.
As for help from your LDBMs, if they are online savvy, you could set up DIY instructions for tasks you'd like help on (my MOH did this for her 1001 crane Mon for her wedding - she did a DIY tutorial & sent it out to all her family members & BMs to each make 10 origami cranes...cut her origami work by 80%) or get online pics of all the accessories you want opinions on. You can also make a skype date for your BMs to have a discussion, if that's how your ladies roll. Right now, my mom & I are emailing pics of FG dresses as well as her MOB dress...FMIL has also joined the online convo, so she can "match" my mom. It's definitely not your "traditional" planning process, but there have been no kinks so far (knock on wood!)...Good Luck!
We are in the same boat as you. I sent out STDs 6 months out and also created a website with hotel and travel information. We set-up blocks of hotel rooms at the 6 month mark too so that people could go ahead and book their rooms. Be sure to choose hotels in different price ranges. If you have your reception at a hotel be sure to find out if you get discounted rooms for wedding guests.
We are planning wedding weekend activities for the guests to do and I added that to our wedding website and to an enclosure card with the formal invites. We are doing rehearsal dinner on Friday night with welcome cocktails later in the evening at the hotel, Golf on Saturday morning and wine tasting that afternoon. Wedding/reception Saturday night with a brunch on Sunday morning. I'm not paying for all these activities just the Rehearsal dinner, wedding reception and brunch.
Oh yes, one more thing. Transportation. Try to have your event close to airports to help cut the cost for them. We were invited to a wedding this year at a ski resort so we were going to have to fly in and driver over two hours to get there. So that meant spending lots of money in transportation. My girlfriend is getting married in Seattle and the venue is near the rail-system so we can fly in and get on the rail and not spend much on a rental car/gas.
yes i know it's def. very important to send out save the dates. thanks for all the other advice, keep it coming! i keep showing my hunny and he is like "thank God for this website!" lol i say the same thing everyone is so helpful!
i do have a question though, how do i go about blocking rooms? do we pay for the hotels to do that? we are not going to have the wedding at a hotel people don't want to fly 3000 miles to attend a wedding at the same old place and plus i want something outside! :)
i was def. considering setting up events..like a tour guide or something would do. just making a list of different activites that we'll all be doing prior to the wedding (since we obviously won't be there after the wedding, hellooo honeymoon! :-p) i'll also have stuff for them to choose to do after the wedding. we want everything to affordable for everyone, including ourselves.
Just look for a hotel that will allow you to set some rooms aside under a name, and will then release the rooms if they haven't been booked by, say, 2 weeks out.
Also, So Cal is a big place, but make sure before you set a date when there isn't a big event going on nearby. Locals certainly can survive a marathon or convention, but it can wreak havoc on people who don't know how to drive there or need a hotel.
As an old married lady on the other side of things 
I have a couple suggestions considering I am an East Coast guest heading to a California wedding in September.
It is a wedding of one of my closest male friends from college. He's known my husband from day one so there is no way we aren't going to the wedding. But I found out they moved up their date to the same month of a wedding I am in, our anniversary and it is being held at a very expensive resort (I am talking rooms starting at $500 a night.)
I'm anticipating this trip will be so expensive we've cancelled a Caribbean vacation we were planning in June. From my perspective these are things that I could use from the bride now to help me plan:
1. A STD with all the pertinent information (I stalked down their wedding Web site but it has two different dates listed causing me to scratch my head)
2. Alternate hotel blocks bc I can't swing $500 a night hotel room after flying across the country. I want to come early and make a vacation so suggestions on places to stay, transportation options and tourist attractions would be a huge help.
3. Let me know now if there is something the day after the wedding I might want to stick around for.
Hope that helps with some advice from someone who just went through it and is now a guest.
re: booking rooms. Most hotels do not require you pay for rooms. But read the fine print carefully some blocks can result in you paying for unbooked rooms or any damages etc. (I have a friend who had to pay for rooms the hotel refunded for other guests bc her guests were loud).
Typically, you call the hotels you are interested in reserving rooms at, tell them how many, when and they quote you a price. A good question to ask as well is if they offer a complimentary shuttle and free parking. Then you sign a contract, Like I said check the fine print to avoid getting caught holding the bag.
Hi,
We have similar situation where our guests are from east coast and Asia
1. Lodging We're going to pay for our relatives' hotel for a few nights in SF since they are coming all the way from Asia or somewhere in America. If it is in your budget, it may be worth considering to show your appreciation for their time and travel fee.
2. Transportation We're asking our relatives to rent their own cars since I personally do not have time to drive them. My parents may consider renting a van but that aint enug to hold everyone. They're on their own for rides
3. Touristy stuff We plan to show them around the bay area since most of them have not been here before, or have not been here for a long time. Wedding day will be more of family reunion week where we have to play host family. that's partly the reason i dont plan to have a honeymoon right away, i need to rest after my wedding and touring the bay area... rest... wan't wait
This is a great string of questions & replies - I echo all your points made previously! I'm planning a wedding in San Diego while living in Pasadena, working in Hawaii (yes, working), and most of our guests will be coming from non-CA locations (East Coast, Europe, New Zealand). We have been very diligent about updating our website and making sure people know how the weekend's going to go. My parents & my aunt/uncle are both renting houses in San Diego, and we'll be using those as bases of operation for many activities, along with the hotel.
Hotel: I found our hotel by using the San Diego Convention & visitor's bureau. They requested proposals from a number of hotels in the neighborhood near the wedding venue, and then all I had to do was review the proposals & call up the ones I was interested in. I specifically wanted hotel rooms at around $100 a night, with some restaurants or shops nearby if people wanted to walk somewhere. Thus I ended up in the Golden Triangle area of SD - not as picturesque as say, La Jolla, but a heck of a lot cheaper! It made it SO much easier to not have to cold call. And the Visitors Bureau followed up with me to make sure the hotels were cooperating. As the date draws closer, my contact at the Visitors Bureau will be working with me to gather local maps, coupon books, etc. to put in the OOT bags.
A couple of other thoughts:Communication is the key to a successful event (and I speak from non-wedding event experience - I'm hoping that it translates to weddings as well!). Hire a planner if you can, a DOC at the very least, because you know that there will be many folks unfamiliar with the area & thus unable to run errands for you. I LOVE my planner & seriously don't know what I'd do without her. Good luck & enjoy!!!!
Also, be sure to consider a date that either does or doesn't overlap with a holiday, whichever way you decide works for you! Remember:
If it's on a holiday weekend:
We live in AZ, but are planning our wedding in CA. My family is mostly in CA, but not all in the area that the wedding is being held. FI's family is mostly in ND. And we have family all over the country (NJ, NY, CO, IL, MN, AZ, CA).
We are hoping that the oceanside wedding during the summer will give Arizonans a nice break from the heat, all the non-coastal guests a chance to see the ocean, and people with families can use this as a possible extension of their family summer vacation while the kids are out of school.
We tried to be really considerate of costs for guests. Besides various options for hotels (block out rooms), look into local condos that groups can share, and try to make it possible for everyone to not rent cars. That means carpools / shuttles to and from the airport, one ceremony/reception site, and shuttles from town to the site. Also, if people stay downtown they wouldn't have to have a car to go out for dinner, entertain kids, etc. I went to a family reunion where if you left the hotel to go anywhere you had to have a car - that wasn't a great idea. We've posted all our info on our website and created a facebook event page so people can post when they're arriving, if they're renting a car, and whether they can offer / need rides.
We are planing a vineyard wedding in Central NY, my parents are in ND, and have friends and family coming from all over the country. FI's family is local but extremely small. Here are some things we are doing:
1) Sent a save the date email to all of our definite guests ASAP with hotel, B&B, Airport informationg, etc. We did it this way because we are having only a 6 month engagement and wanted to get an idea of who is coming since we are looking to stay at 80 people. The location also necesitates having a car for transportation. In the email, we included 5+ airports and distances as well as amtrak options.
2) Booked a hotel, suggesting B&B's and places to find lake house rentals (vineyard is between two of the finger lakes) as well as camping options for the extremely budget consious. We blocked rooms at hotel at $109/night.
3) Having a Friday rehearsal BBQ/gathering for out of town guests. These are all people coming from literally all corners of the country so we wanted to spend as much time with them as possible. This is fairly affordable because the vineyard has a lake house that they are giving to use for 1/2 price for the week. The house provides a great back drop for a BBQ with supplies from Wegmans and a local farm.
Good luck with your planning!
thank you so much for all the suggestions! we really appreciate it :) i'm starting to mellow out a little bit more about all this now that my relatives and friends are telling me i'm just trying to take on too much and a lot of this is just up to them and i should just give them the basics to go off of. such as everything you guys listed. i was getting too worried about what to do for the venue because i wanted to keep everyone in the immediate san diego area up to vista, ca. we know the most about these areas. however the one specific venue(ceremony will be at the same place) we're really interested in is about an hour north of where we live making it a further commute for guests. everyone i told this too was like "ok so what's the problem?" lol i worried for nothing. they didn't mind because it's only 1 day that they have to commute that far and it's for our wedding and if that's where we want to have it then we should. i wish we could be a millionare so i could just pay for all their flights and hotels.
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Hello! We are living in CA. I have relatives and friends on the east coast and my guy has relatives in TX and OK. I'm trying to go about planning a wedding basically on my own and with the help of the FI but obviously it would be so much better with the help of girl friends. I was just wondering if anyone who has gone through this or is going through it can offer me some ideas and advice. I'm sure we will have to do some things different since it's almost like a destination wedding and not a "normal" wedding. Thanks ladies!