09 May 10 Creative Ideas And Tips For Your Travel Theme Wedding
Whether you’re currently postponing your destination wedding for brighter post-COVID-19-travel-ban times, or you’re simply looking for ways to introduce a travel theme into your wedding day, we have some fresh and creative ideas for you. Since travel forms such a big part of our life (and our relationship), we decided to bring a lot of that through in our wedding day, and we hope this post can inspire you to have your own travel theme wedding. So without further ado, here are some creative ideas for your wedding day, as taken from our very own travel theme destination wedding:
–
How To Plan A Travel Theme Wedding – Creative Ideas & Tips
–
1. Consider A Destination Wedding
–
What better way to introduce travel into your wedding, then to get your guests to travel?! It seems fairly obvious, but even if overseas travel is out of the question (which is quite likely, considering the current times with the coronavirus pandemic), nothing’s stopping you from choosing a wedding venue an hour or two outside of your hometown. Just the mere act of getting you and your guests to pack a bag for a night, and trek across to somewhere new, will add a hint of adventure into the wedding celebrations (and it might even save you a few bucks if your venue is small or fairly unknown). Just be sure to supply your guests with as much helpful information as possible to assist in the travel planning. If, for example, you’re planning a romantic wedding in Quintana Roo, Mexico, you can include links to rental apartments or Airbnbs found in Tulum, Playa Del Carmen and Cancun, and even go as far as provide them with reputable transport assistance from the likes of Cancun Airport Transfers or Cancun Car Rental (to allow them to explore a little more before or after your wedding).
–
–
–
2. Go On A Pre-Wedding Adventure (Then Share The Experience In A Movie)
–
Another way to bring travel into the wedding day, is to have a “pre-wedding” elopement (like we did) and then capture it all on video (something we’d love to help you with) and share it with your guests on your wedding day in a casual and fun movie. We went a little further, and created a 20-minute film on “The Story Of Us” (which shared highlights from our decade together), but bringing our Namibia elopement adventure in movie form to share with our guests right before our ceremony, created an adventurous mood and was a real highlight – especially since we served popcorn and other goodies during the movie screening.
–
–
3. Use Food To Transport Your Guests To A Faraway Land
–
Food is one of the best ways to bring your travel theme wedding to life, because it’s such an easy way to celebrate a country. We brought back different sweets from our travels to have as welcome snacks, which we served with the popcorn during our movie screening. We had Polish Fudge, Austrian Wafers, Japanese candy, and a few other delectable treats. Of course you don’t have to travel to get the candy – World of Snacks and Amazon both have a wide variety of sweets from all over the world which you can order for delivery.
–
–
And you can also go beyond candy. Food trucks, buffet tables, your special cake, and DIY stations can all be made with travel in mind. Mexican Taco stand? Yup. Make-Your-Own Pizza stations to transport you to Naples? Mmm hmmm. What about a desert station serving famous European pastries, like Austrian Sachertorte or French Macarons? Or maybe your appetisers (served during cocktail hour) highlight Vietnamese cuisine? You could have a lot of fun here, so don’t be scared to think international when it comes to your grazing tables and catering!
–
–
4. Have Postcards As Your Guest Book
–
This was probably one of our favourite ideas. We decided about a year before our wedding that we were going to start collecting postcards to have for guests to “send us” messages of love and advice – a travel theme wedding guest book, if you will. We got some cute stamps for the kids (although the adults seemed to have enjoyed them too) and various pens (since some postcards had glossy paper which only worked with permanent markers).
–
–
Of course we were lucky that we were able to collect postcards on our travels, and if you’re staying put, that might be tough to do, but there’s a couple ways around it. If you have friends or family abroad, you could ask them to send you some (unwritten in an envelope, of course), and if they’re coming to your wedding, then they can bring them then (we had a couple friends bring us some extras). You could also order them online (there’s some great collections for sale on Etsy) or you could get a graphic designer to make you some, if you were wanting specific countries or cities.
–
–
This also proved to be a fun way to include the guests we invited, who couldn’t actually make it to our wedding – as they sent us messages on postcards before the wedding, and we kept them to read during our honeymoon (together with all the other postcards).
–
5. Include Photos From Your Past Travels In Your Travel Theme Wedding Decor
–
If you, like us, have been on many trips together, why not get some of your favourite memories from those trips and print them out for your wedding day? We placed ours on tiny wooden easels, and scattered a few photos around the popcorn station, but there’s many ways you could display your photos. Tiny pegs suspending pics from wire, framed photos, polaroids scattered on your guests’ tables – there’s really no limit. There has to be a reason why travel is so important to the two of you if you’re planning a travel theme wedding, so bring that inspiration through in your design and decor too.
–
–
–
6. Name Your Tables After Countries or Cities
–
Maybe you’ll use this opportunity to highlight six of your favourite countries that you’ve traveled to as a couple, or maybe you have an Australian travel theme wedding, and you’ll name your tables after Australia’s most iconic cities. Whichever way you go, moving away from simply numbering your tables and giving them each a city or country as a name, is a great way to bring travel through in your travel theme wedding.
–
–
7. Serve Drinks From Different Countries
–
Instead of serving wine on the tables, serve alcohol that is synonymous with the country that your guests are sitting at. We served Ouzo at the GREECE Table, Pisco at the PERU Table, Finlandia Vodka at the FINLAND Table, and Sake at the JAPAN Table. We also left a note for each guest explaining how to drink their drink (the Ouzo, for example, needs to be served by adding water to it, so it goes milky – something the Greeks love to do), and since screaming “Cheers!” is also different in each country, we gave our guests instructions of what to scream during the final toast which Stevo gave. We heard “Kan-pai!” being screamed from the JAPAN table, “Kippis!” if they were sitting at the FINLAND Table, and “Yammas!” at the GREECE Table. Here’s a useful link for how to say “Cheers!” in 100 countries, if you like this idea and want to do it also.
–
–
8. Use A World Map For Your Seating Map
–
If your guests are seated at different cities or countries, why not display the seating map in a global map? It’ll make a fun display piece at your wedding, and your guests will feel (even just a little bit) that they’ve traveled there.
–
–
9. Have Some Fun With Your Invitations And Save-The-Dates
–
You can really go wild with the design of your invites and save-the-dates. If you’re planning to send printed versions, you could theme them, creating passports or airline tickets (there’s tons of creative designs available on Etsy). If you’re sticking to digital (like we did) you can create your own design using amazing landscape and postcard-like images from different places around the world (we have a massive library from the 60 countries we’ve traveled to – here’s a quick snapshot of some of our travel photos and you can see some below as well – so if you’d like to get some images from us for your invites and save-the-dates, send us a mail!)
–
–
If you’re looking at a general travel theme wedding, you can use images from a variety of places, but if you’ll have a Scottish-theme or Brazilian-theme, then you can just use little elements or photos from those particular countries. Try search for the country’s design elements on Pinterest and Etsy to see what is available, and to get your juices flowing. Here are some great Mexico, Italy, France, and Morocco travel theme wedding design ideas I found.
–
10. Hire A Creative Wedding Planner For Your Travel Theme Wedding
–
We all know that creative brainstorming is best done with people, so why not hire a creative wedding planner to help you think of all the touchpoints where you could bring travel through? We hired Gabby from ‘Cause We Can Events and cannot recommend her enough! After two years of back and forth emailing and idea brainstorming, she was able to bring our vision to life, and took all the elements we created and designed, and made our special day the perfect travel theme wedding we were hoping to have.
–
–
We ourselves are also branching out to offer small wedding and elopement planning, creating, and capturing (yup!), so if you like the ideas we shared in this post, we may be the perfect partner you’re looking for to make your travel theme wedding come to life. Let us know and get in touch!
–
–
We hope this post has inspired you, and has gotten your creative juices flowing. As mentioned, we would love to help you create and capture your own travel theme wedding or elopement, so send us a mail and let’s get creating!
–
OUR WEDDING VENDORS:
her dresses: @chosenbyoneday • his suit: @tommaso__bordoni • his accessories: @thetiebar • her head piece: @happilyeverborrowed •
her robe: @daphnenewmandesign • her hair & make-up: @makeupbyalmari • ceremony venue: @draaihoek_lodge_restaurant • reception venue and catering: @bosduifklip • planning & coordinating: @causewecanevents • decor & florals: @museconcepts_weddings_events • stationery: @howfarfromhome • cake: @sweet.lionheart • live music and entertainment: @shoutmc • custom neon sign: @mk.neon • photography: @jennifermoher • videography: @spearheadweddingfilms • photo and film editing: @howfarfromhome
–
The Newly-weds,
Chanel & Stevo
–
If you enjoyed this blog post, you may want to see the rest of our Wedding Series right here on our blog, or on YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest and TikTok.
No Comments