Professional Wedding Planners have always known that one of the most important parts of planning a bride and groom's special day is the lodging of out-of-town guests. With the precision of a ballet, planners must often perform a delicate dance shuffling guests from the hotel to the wedding venue, and then must coordinate their return late in the evening following a gala reception. And when guests are housed an several different hotels located miles from the ceremony venue, it usually requires the use of a fleet of limos or even tour buses to get everyone into the wedding on time. One way Wedding Planners work around this dilemma is to book the ceremony at "destination" wedding venues.

Most of these types of facilities offer a package that includes not only the ceremony venue and reception hall, but also guest accommodations in the same location. When this type of multi-purpose venue is used for a wedding, the travel hassles of moving guests to and from outlying hotels can be eliminated. When brides think of "destination" wedding sites, those that come to mind are usually located in expensive locales such as Hawaii, the Mexican Rivera or the Caribbean.

These far-flung venues can be exciting for the bride and groom, but often create logistics and cost problems for guests and family. This is why smart Wedding Planners have learned to look for venues that can serve all of their needs in the bride and groom's own back yard. One such "destination" wedding venue that is a classic example of what Wedding Planners look for is Wonder Valley Ranch Resort, a 75-acre Conference Center located in the Sierra Nevada foothills just east of California's Central Valley. The resort's Director of Marketing, Vonda Hutchinson, explains why couples are turning to "destination" venues. "All couples want to be married in a beautiful, serene location," Hutchinson said, "but they also want easy access for friends and family. Our resort has been well known for several decades as a welcoming facility for businesses to hold retreats and also leisure travelers.

It is situated in a quiet little valley near Sequoia National Park, and our peace and quiet is legendary." Recently, the Oken family, owners of the resort, realized that the shady grounds under Wonder Valley's mature Oaks and Sycamores would make a wonderful wedding venue, and their many guest rooms could easily provide the guest accommodations that couples require. The family has since invested in a new Lakeview Wedding Garden for outdoor wedding ceremonies alongside their lake, and a large, flexible Legacy Events Center adjacent to the wedding garden for receptions. "We've had Wedding Planners tell us this is the perfect combination of a peaceful location that offers the lodging and banquet facilities their couples are looking for," Hutchinson said. "We are close enough to Fresno and Clovis to allow local guests to make a short drive to the ceremony, but have on-site rooms available for the wedding party and their traveling guests.

" With the lodging problem solved by using a "destination" wedding venue that includes guest rooms right on the property, couples and their planners can then focus in on the endless number of smaller details that make each wedding unique. Copyright (c) 2008 Dan Pimentel.

Author Dan Pimentel owns a creative studio in Oregon and frequently writes about lifestyle topics. For more information about the venue mentioned in this article, click here.