What it’s Like Planning a Wedding in Poland
Summary: I’m laying it all out – what we’ve experienced so far planning a wedding in Poland, where we’ve prioritized and saved money, how our family and friends reacted to a destination wedding, and more!
We are officially within three months of our Polish wedding and I’m feeling it all: excitement, anxiety, preparedness, unpreparedness, but most of all, I’m just giddy for everyone we love to be in one of our favorite places with us.
Why We’re Getting Married in Poland
I think it has become pretty normal for Americans to get married at a villa in Italy or a chateau in France, but every time I tell people we are getting married in Poland, the next question, without fail, is:
“Why Poland?”
The short answer is Austin is Polish and we love it there.
His dad was the first generation born in the US and most of the family lives here in the US, but there are actually a few cousins in Poland that no one has met yet, and they’re coming to the wedding!
There’s also the matter of cost. I wouldn’t say our wedding is “cheap” by any means, but we simply could not afford to have an equivelant wedding in the US. Our venue is where we’ll have our welcome party, ceremony, reception, and it has enough rooms for all of our guests to stay for two nights. This type of venue might exist in the US, but it would be well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars for what we’re doing.
And lastly, as an avid traveler who just RELISHES being the reason that people end up traveling to places I love, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to have everyone in my life visit Krakow, Poland.
Our Wedding Planning Trip to Krakow
Austin and I just got back from a short trip to Krakow to finally see our venue in person, meet all of the vendors we hired, and finalize all the little details.
Is a Wedding Planner Necessary?
Let me paint a picture for you.
Austin and I are sitting across the desk from a Catholic priest in the little town of Brzesko, Poland with our hands folded in our lap, trying to be as respectful as possible while not following the conversation between him and our planner in the slightest.
Everything about that scenario intimidated me.
I’ve had this thought many times, but nothing made me think “what would I do without our planner?” more than showing up at the church and realizing the English-speaking priest wasn’t available.
Luckily, he is available for our ceremony, but our planner had an entire conversation to confirm our documents and ceremony details with the priest that was available on our behalf.
The moment we decided to look into having a wedding in Poland, I decided a planner was going to be necessary. Communicating with vendors in another time zone with a language barrier wasn’t something I cared to navigate alone and I’m so glad I don’t have to. Not to mention, they have worked with so many of the vendors in the area that they know who to recommend and who to stay away from.
Meeting our Wedding Vendors
For the most part, I’ve taken our wedding planner’s recommendations on the vendors we’ve hired. She was so confident about the hair and makeup artists, she just told me “I booked you in with them, there’s no one better.”
Okay, slay!
When it came to photo, video, and content creation, I looked at a few different options, but ultimately ended up choosing the ones she suggested.
I’m actually not sure if this is normal or not, but I haven’t talked to anyone we booked other than our planner and the DJ, so when we were in Krakow for this trip, we booked a hair and makeup trial and a photoshoot with our photographer.
Jetlag and a bit of wedding anxiety had me only sleeping about two hours the night before all of this, so to say I was a zombie is an understatement. I was nearly falling asleep in the makeup artist’s chair. But they were both so nice and welcoming. I just know they’re going to be amazing to have around the morning of the wedding.
And then we met the photographers.
It was a husband and wife duo who were amazing at hyping us up and getting pictures quick and then changing the scene for more. We haven’t gotten those photos back yet, but we are so excited to see them.
Seeing our Wedding Venue
On a different day (and after a little more sleep), our planner picked us up from our hotel and whisked us off to finally see our venue in person.
The best word I can use to describe this was surreal.
I had looked at just about every picture of this place that exists online. I had looked through entire wedding photo galleries that took place here. I had scoured the floor plan to understand the layout.
Seeing it in person after all of that was like stepping into a fantasy novel world that you’ve build in your head after reading the entire series. Like holy shit, this place is real! And I’m in it!
We got to try all the food we’ll be having, see the rooms everyone will be staying in, and take a tour of the chapel and reception room. It’s everything we could have imagined and more.
Overall, I have a really hard time picturing what things will look like without actually seeing them (hence stalking every photo online), so making decisions about flowers, decor, linens, etc. has been one of the hardest parts of planning. Getting a chance to walk through the space and meet the florist at the venue helped so much when it came to making those decisions.
What I Didn’t Expect
This trip served two purposes for me: seeing, tasting, and trialing everything we’ve already commited to, and getting a glimpse into how I’ll feel when the actual wedding comes.
I’ve never experienced insomnia like I did on this trip.
I was so tired every day that I felt only half awake and I had to lay down in the afternoon for an hour or two. Then, nighttime would roll around and I’d be wide awake.
I tried listening to music, opening up the window for cooler air, Austin rubbing my back. I tried sleeping on the couch, white noise, talking to ChatGPT.
You guys, it got so bad I even woke Austin up one time and asked if he’d pray with me. I know he’s my husband because he obliged without a second thought.
But none of it worked. My thoughts were racing and certain TikTok sounds were just playing over and over in my head. “Sue me I want to be wanted” just on repeat.
This wasn’t just normal jetlag. I usually get over that in a day or two, and the first night after the wedding planning stuff was over, I slept like a baby which was so frustrating because I wanted to be well rested for the trials and tasting, but it let me know that I’ll need some sort of sleep aid for the week leading up.
We also changed our flight to come in a day earlier than we originally planned, so we will have the entire week before the wedding and some good drugs to get us used to the time zone and hopefully rested for when the festivities begin!
While we were at it, we also decided to extend our honeymoon by a few days, so now we’ll have our first ever 3-week long trip!
The Reality of Planning a Destination Wedding
Aside from this trip, there are a few questions I get pretty often, so I thought I’d answer them here. The first is how our friends and family reacted to a destination wedding.
Family Responses to a Destination Wedding
I think this is the biggest fear a lot of people have when they are thinking about getting married abroad. Austin and I never wanted a huge wedding. Personally, I very much prefer more intimate gatherings where I know and can talk to everyone.
But we needed to make sure everyone we loved would be willing to go before we decided.
So, we just asked them. That’s all you can do.
The responses varied from hesitant willingness from my parents who have never been to Europe to my Matron of Honor who told me I could get married on the moon and she’d find a way to be there.
There are a few people who decided not to come who we would have loved to have with us, but overall, the response was good and generally hasn’t been discouraging. And that’s coming from a huge people pleaser. At the very least, if people are annoyed, they aren’t telling us which is all I can ask for!
Plus, I don’t think this was a huge shock to most people in our lives. They know we love to travel. My brother’s first response to us getting engaged was “wherever in the world you get married, I’ll be there” before we even thought about Poland.
The big thing is you have to be okay with some people close to you not coming. That was a hard pill to swallow for me at first, but it truly is a lot to ask. That doesn’t mean you can’t ask it, but it does mean people are more likely to say “no.” Which also doesn’t mean they don’t love you.
What We’re Prioritizing Spending Money On
I mentioned earlier that we wouldn’t be able to afford this wedding in the US, but we can in Poland. However, that doesn’t mean we’re spending with an unlimited budget. We’ve still had to prioritize certain things over others to make it work for us.
When we started planning, we knew we wanted an epic location and we wanted the food to be amazing. Luckily, we found an incredible venue that has a kitchen on-site with the best wedding food I’ve ever tasted.
After we had the venue locked down, we wanted to recognize that our guests would be flying across the world, some of them for the very first time to Europe, so we wanted to spend time and money where we could to make them feel welcomed and cared for.
Without giving too much away, this includes things like curating welcome bags for the hotel rooms, including everyone in the welcome dinner instead of just a rehersal dinner, organizing a group tour in Krakow before we head to the venue, making a pinned Google Map of all of our favorite places in Krakow, and making sure everyone with dietary restrictions sees the menu ahead of time and confirms it’ll be good for them.
I spend a lot of time curating ideas and itineraries on my blog and on social media. I love helping someone create an incredible experience, so this part has been really fun for me!
A few areas where we’ve decided NOT to spend as much:
- My dress (we still spent quite a bit, but I originally fell in love with a $12,000 dress 😳)
- Upgrading to Chopin vodka (our fave)
- Not doing the Jo Malone “Scent Your Wedding” experience like we originally planned
- Not going too hard on flowers
- Not covering the cost of the guest rooms at the venue (wish we could do this, but it’s a reasonable cost per-room)
Polish Traditions We’re Including and Omitting
With having a Polish wedding, there are some traditions that are very different from American weddings.
The biggest one is probably the length. Polish weddings are usually 2-3 days and can run until 4-5am every night. We are technically having a 2-day celebration because we are having a welcome dinner the night before, but it’ll end around 10pm. The wedding reception is set to end at 4am which is typical in Poland and very late for American standards. We plan to keep going until most people have gone to their rooms for the night.
Similar to American weddings, there is usually a bouquet toss, but I don’t think I’ll be doing that.
One tradition we are doing is that after the ceremony, our parents will present us with bread and salt which we’ll eat and then we’ll each get a shot of clear liquid. One will be vodka and one will be water. The person who gets the vodka is supposed to be the one that handles the finances in the marriage.
The amount of food that will be served is also very different from American weddings. There will be a multi-course dinner around 5:30pm, then another (somewhat smaller) plated meal around 9:30pm, and lastly, an optional buffet at midnight. Let’s just say our guests won’t be hungry!
The one that I’m still kind of stuck on is that my planner let me know that they don’t usually do a wedding rehersal. She said we can run through it quickly with the wedding party if we want, but the priest isn’t going to be there the day before. I’m sure that’ll be fine and most people know what to do, but it does make me a tad nervous to not rehearse anything beforehand.
What We Still Have To Do
Most of the big decisions are done. The vendors are all booked. The timeline is made. Now, it’s time for the smaller details which are proving to be much harder than I anticipated.
Here’s what’s on my list of things we need to do between now and October:
- Make menus and placecards for the welcome dinner
- Make menus and placecards for the wedding reception
- Decide if we want a bar menu and if so, make or order that
- Finish ordering what I need to for the welcome bags
- Receive my welcome party dress in the mail (it’s custom from Vietnam)
- Order getting ready outfits for my girls
- Figure out gifts to give our parents and order those
- Choose music for parent dances, entrance, and maybe a couple more things?
- Organize a tour in Krakow
- Make the seating chart
- Assign rooms to everyone
- Finalize hotels and activities for our honeymoon
I think that’s it, but I’m sure I’m forgetting at least a couple of things.
I’m trying to remember that I’ll miss this part once it’s all over. While of course it has been stressful at times, I’ve had a lot of fun doing this so far.
Feeling so grateful to get to stretch my travel planning muscles to plan our dream wedding with 50-60 of our favorite people!
