Destination Weddings
Vacation Homes Redefine Destination Weddings with Intimate Venues, Personalized AttentionAustin, TX (March 10, 2007) — Combine the panoramic views and crystal clear waters of top wedding destinations with a single home to tie the knot, hold the reception and honeymoon, and couples have the newest formula for a picture-perfect destination wedding. According to the CondĂ© Nast Bridal Group, destination weddings have seen a 400 percent increase in the last 10 years. For the most private and intimate destination weddings, brides and grooms increasingly turn to vacation homes instead of hotels. Vacation rental sites, such as HomeAway.com, make the search easy, listing thousands of castles, villas, and holiday homes ideal for weddings and honeymoons - especially for couples who opt to stay in a central place for the festivities, leaving more one-on-one time to celebrate with family and friends. "There's nothing better to me than seeing the joy of a bride and groom getting married in front of my home, with their toes in the sand and the waves as the music," says HomeAway owner James Leavitt who has hosted more than a dozen weddings in his luxury Grand Caymans estate. The estate includes accommodations for 18 guests among the castle and guesthouse, two private pools and an aisle made of 300 feet of white sandy beach for the bride to take her first steps to wedded bliss. In locations as diverse as Mexico and Thailand, nearly one of five couples book destination weddings and are increasingly turning to vacation properties rather than hotels for these top five reasons:
San Francisco Bay Area-based Yolanda Loh and fiancĂ© Rob Berry searched online for a special place for family and friends to gather for their wedding that they envisioned as the "party of their lifetime." The search led them to Dali Hale, a Hawaiian plantation-style estate on the north end of Kauai. Situated ocean-side on three-acres of property, the nine-bedroom home provided accommodations for the couple and their closest friends and doubled as the ideal setting for the wedding and reception. "Our wedding and reception at Dali Hale were magical because of the beautiful home and amazing, breathtaking views," says Loh. "Saying ‘I Do’ on a cliff several hundred feet above Secret Beach, overlooking the ocean, was a story-book setting for us to celebrate." "Many of the guests came for the week and stayed with us at Dali Hale. The days leading up the event were spent swimming in the pool, bodysurfing at Secret Beach, playing bocce ball on the lawn, cooking meals in the gourmet kitchen and taking naps in the hammocks," Loh says. "The homeowner took care of all the details and made certain we could just relax and enjoy everyone being there with us. It wasn't a whirlwind one-day event like most weddings - we created a week of very special memories"
About HomeAway.com:
About HomeAway, Inc.
HomeAway, Inc. is the worldwide leader for vacation rentals on the Internet. Each year, more than 100 million travelers visit the HomeAway
global marketplace that represents more than 170,000 vacation rental homes across 100 countries. The HomeAway portfolio of vacation rental
sites includes HomeAway.com, as well as VRBO.com, CyberRentals.com, A1Vacations.com, GreatRentals.com, TripHomes.com, Holiday-Rentals.co.uk
(UK), HolidayRentals.fr, Abritel.fr (France), FeWo-direkt.de (Germany) and HomeAway.es.
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