The Destination Wedding Specialist Certification Course will be available at the AFWPI Southern California Regional Conference on Thursday, January, at the Sportsmen’s Lodge. The time is yet to be determined, but the course will last four hours on that day. (As soon as a time is determined, this post will be edited to reflect it.)

Candy Cain leads the industry in planning destination weddings.  With her expertise, Candy designed and created a Destination Wedding Specialist Certification course, which has been implemented by the AFWPI to certify wedding professionals in this growing niche of weddings. The course lasts four hours with a 15-minute break halfway through and addresses all aspects of a destination wedding: landing clients, contracts, networking with other vendors, working with local vendors in the destination, learning laws, how to travel, and much more. If time permits, there will be a Q&A session with Candy. After the course, attendees will receive their Destination Wedding Professional Certificate from the AFWPI.

The cost of the course is $349 for AFWPI members and $389 for wedding professionals that are not affiliated with AFWPI. Please click on the appropriate button below in order to confirm your attendance at this valuable course. Once your registration is received, you will receive an email confirming how you would like your name to appear on your certificate.

AFWPI MEMBERS: $349

NON-AFWPI: $389

Candy Cain Travel Co. is expanding it’s operations to Michigan.  The new office is called Candy Cain Travel – Great Lakes Region (www.candycaintravelglr.com).  With the additional staff and office locations, we are now able to offer you a first class service with individual attention.  We look forward to working with you on your future adventures!

With the ever tightening of the United States borders, having a passport for international travel is not only valuable, it is essential.  The United States State Department issues passports to U.S. Citizens with advance notice (usually six to eight weeks) and you will not be able to enter another country or return to the U.S. without it.  Here are important State department links to apply for a passport:

If you have never applied for a passport before:

http://travel.state.gov/passport/get/first/first_830.html

Applying for a minor (under 16) passport:

http://travel.state.gov/passport/get/minors/minors_834.html

Renewing a passport:

http://travel.state.gov/passport/renew/renew_833.html

Passport fees, as of July 13, 2010:

http://travel.state.gov/passport/fees/fees_5079.html

U.S. State department Travel alerts: (for various reasons, weather, political, military)

http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/pa/pa_1766.html

Q: Candy Cain Travel, I google “Quick Passport renewal and I see a lot of businesses who specialize in that kind of thing.  Would you recommend utilizing their services?

A:  Do so at your own risk.  While we haven’t ever used one successfully, we also haven’t had clients get taken by one either, but when you’re traveling internationally, and the only way to get into and leave a foreign country is with proper documentation, isn’t it a good idea to go directly to the source?  We recommend planning ahead and dealing with the State department.  It will save you money, and we tell our clients when we start planning to start the process at that time.