Days 1–3: write the brief on one page
Guest-count band, origin cities, month window, hotel or villa, and whether the island ceremony must create a marriage. That is the entire first document. Pinterest boards are allowed after the page exists. Families who skip the page spend six months arguing about islands that their guest list cannot reach on a Friday. If a parent wants a number, give a range labelled as orientation and attach the guest-count assumption.
- Count heads as a band, not a vibe word
- List the three airports people actually fly from
- Circle a season, not a fantasy Saturday
Days 4–7: kill islands, do not collect them
Use guest flights first. Then legal versus symbolic. Then hotel versus villa. You should have two survivors. If you still have six, you have not filtered. Read the island-comparison guide only to finish the cut, not to reopen Mexico. Publish the two names to family so the group chat stops adding St Kitts from a colleague’s honeymoon.
- Flights are the rude filter and the correct one
- Legal status is week-one, not month-eleven
- Two names beat a mood board of twelve
Days 8–14: open research, not vendor DMs
Read the destination planner page for each survivor. Read the licence guide if you want a civil ceremony there. Then start the free wedding profile. Cold-DMing ten Instagram planners with ‘hey we might do Jamaica??’ produces ten generic PDFs. A profile with the four fields lets us independently source against a real brief. You still appoint. You still contract. We do not stay on as your wedding planner.
- Destination pages before Instagram
- Licence page only if civil status is required
- Profile before a dozen DMs
What ‘getting started’ is not
It is not paying a deposit to a hotel wedding desk because a booth at a wedding market offered a complimentary arch. It is not hiring a home-city planner who has never stood on the lawn. It is not waiting until flights are cheap in eleven months. Getting started is the brief, the shortlist, and a research request. Deposits come after job is written. Spreadsheets of unvisited islands are homework, not progress.
- No room block until hotel or villa is named
- No planner fee until you have seen comparable work
- No ‘we will figure legal out later’ if grandma cares about the certificate
Keep family in the brief, not in the vendor inbox
Parents who mean well will email three hotels by Friday. Give them the one-page brief instead of access to your WhatsApp. If they want a number, give a labelled range. If they want a venue, give two island names. Vendor inboxes are for people who will own the weekend, not for the group chat.
- One document, one owner
- No hotel emails until two islands survive
- Ranges are allowed; fake precision is not
Common questions
Questions couples ask
How do we start planning a Caribbean wedding this week?
Write the one-page brief, cut to two islands, then start a free wedding profile. That is a complete first week. Vendor deposits are not a first-week activity.
Can we start without knowing the island?
You can start the brief. You cannot usefully hire production. Island choice is an early filter, not a finishing flourish.
What if our parents want a venue booked immediately?
Show them the guest-pay flight problem. A lawn that cousins cannot reach is not a venue. Give them two island names and a month window instead of a deposit receipt.
Is the free wedding profile the same as hiring you?
No. It is the research brief. Paid matching is a later choice with published fees. You remain free to stop after the profile.
What if we only have a month?
Then the brief still comes first, and the weekend shrinks: fewer guests, resort hotel package, symbolic ceremony. A short clock does not skip the four fields.