Weddingbee boards

Hi Bees!! I'm recently engaged and while I have plenty ideas about my "dream wedding", I have not yet started planning.  I'm originally from the St. Louis area and have always known my wedding will be near home, but my FI is in Pennsylvania (where we both went to college) and after I graduate in May I don't think I'll end up back in the St. Louis area.  Does anyone have any advice for planning a wedding from a few states away?  I'm also contemplating hiring a wedding planner/coordinator in St. Louis to help out with things when I'm not able to be in the city.  Any thoughts?

Our families are both pretty big, so I'm guessing around 250 guests? That's just a ballpark number... and I'm sure we'll be limited by our budget, too haha but I'd love an outdoor ceremony and maybe a reception venue with indoor and outdoor space.

I am in the process of doing just that.  I am currently living in Omaha Ne, but having the wedding in St. Louis (its where I met and started dating my fiance).

When we got engaged in June 2011 we knew we would want to get married in St. Louis.  So we picked a date far enough away that we would have time to plan. 

I am not going to lie it is kind of tough.  One thing I really looked for in vendors were people who were willing and able to work online and by phone.  When I was calling arround I noticed that some people were cool with this and others really prefered face to face meetings. 

As for deciding to hire a planner... That is really a personal choice.  I never thought we would right up until the day we actually did. 

We hired a DOC. That decision came later when I was trying to find someone just to help with set up and tear down (I didn't me or our families or freinds to have to). Well I ended up meeting with a DOC recomended by my venue and fell in love! She is going to pick up at the 3 month mark and handle everything. She is finalizing all the details with our vendors and going to be there that weekend to keep everything flowing smooth. 

The biggest thing I would keep in mind is that even though you can do a lot by phone and email, you still will have to make a couple of trips to the STL.  What I did was plan these way ahead of time and I packed them full of appointments. They were tiring trips, but I got tons done. 

Hope it all goes well! Have fun planning!