You can get a coupon for free entry to the bridal show online. I recommend bringing printed return address labels with your name, phone number, email address and mailing address. I didn't find the expo to be very useful except in filling up my email inbox, but I possibly didn't go at the right time. I went early in my planning process and didn't know exactly what I needed. I also am not getting married in Dallas, so much of the info wasn't relevant. If I had an opportunity to go to a show like this in the city (or country) where we are getting married, it would have been useful. I will likely use some of the info for things like choosing invitations, but overall, I didn't find attending the bridal show to be beneficial, certainly not worth paying for admission.

We are having something similar to a rehearsal dinner at the Italian Club of Dallas after our destination wedding in Italy. The Club has an in-house chef that will give you a quote on the food costs to go with your facility rental, or you can just rent the facility and bring in an outside caterer of your choice. The Club said they aren't usually available for rental on Friday nights, but we are going to use it on a Saturday. Facility is pretty, nice floors, cool bar area, good artwork. Our contact there was named Jay Laurenzi.

We set up a wedding website for our destination wedding to provide a lot of info that couldn't easily be included on our small save the date postcard. This will also save us the expense of doing accomodations cards, etc. with our wedding invitations. The website lets you customize a lot, including things like the menu on the left side of the page, which we wanted to be bilingual (in the native language of the country where we're getting married).

We have set up a honeymoon registry through Traveler's Joy and would recommend it. As with many honeymoon registry sites, this essentially allows you to list things you plan to do (or places to stay or modes of transport) on your honeymoon, designate how much it will cost and how many you want, and your guests can underwrite your trip. The registry site takes a percentage of the gift, but this is standard. We liked that it wasn't a travel service that forced you into packaged tours or required prepayment. We listed all the elements of our dream honeymoon in Greece and Turkey, and whether we do everything will depend on what we receive as gifts and how much we spend in the weeks leading up to the wedding. Thus, even though we registered for a couples massage, for example, we are free to change our mind and use the money designated for that massage to go for a special dinner or something.

The castle is beautiful and is available for rental, though our experience has been that you cannot make a reservation very far in advance, which is desirable when planning a wedding. We plan to do our ceremony in the larger courtyard, but will use the judicial room if the weather is bad. We plan to have guests tour the castle after the ceremony while we take pictures.

Hotel Marinella is a beautiful place near the beach and located just outside of Pizzo, in the region of Calabria, Italy. They have worked with us on developing the reception menu. The price includes antipasti, a multi-course dinner, cake, and wine and spumante. I am not sure if they speak English, but an Italian-speaking wedding planner could arrange things with them. They are willing to communicate by email but responses are not always quick (though I prefer email to phone to prevent communication difficulties).

Kate is an established photographer but new to doing weddings. She does a phenomenal job, even when her subjects aren't the most photogenic. She is based in Washington DC but is travelling to shoot our destination wedding. We have already done engagement pictures with her. She was creative in her choice of locations and in setting up the shots. She made us feel at ease and made us look great! Cannot wait for her to shoot our wedding. Highly recommended.

There was a pretty good selection of bridesmaids dresses and here and the staff was very friendly. As with all other bridal salons, I got the sense there was some excess flattery, but they did their best to be helpful. They had the best price on the bridesmaids' dresses that we selected by about $10. They did not tell us that they charge $10 for shipping even if you pick up your dresses at the store (it is $20 if you have it shipped to your bridesmaids directly). I thought that was misleading, but it just makes the price equal to other salons (and they might do the same thing).

I purchased shoes at Alfred Angelo before buying my dress at another salon. The shoes were on sale and very pretty, but there is a good reason that the general rule is to buy your dress first and accessories later. I now need to find out where to go to dye my shoes. But the dress selection at Alfred Angelo was good, though they didn't have the particular Piccione dress to try on, which was the whole purpose of my trip there.

Customer service was lacking in general. It was much more fun to try on dresses at other salons. But the bottom line was that Mockingbird Bridal had the dress I wanted, it was the closest salon to my house, and the price was typical for what I found online for the dress. And most importantly, MB has been in business for a long time, so I wasn't overly concerned that they would lock the doors after my dress had been paid for, but before I'd gotten it (I'd heard horror stories of this happening with other bridal boutiques). The dress came in quickly, much earlier than promised, and I picked it up and will take it elsewhere for alterations.