No locale can compare to the intimacy of a wedding in a person’s private home. It is a lovely and generous gesture for someone to loan his or her home for your wedding festivities. So, don’t blow it: to take a host up on this offer is a responsibility that should not be taken lightly. Many relationships have soured over the fact that someone loaned a home for a wedding and the bride and groom failed to handle the situation properly.

Here are 12 major things to consider if you want to use that friend or family member’s abode for a pre- or post-wedding party, or even for the celebration itself.

1. Vendors need to recognize that you are in someone’s home, not a hotel or restaurant.

Be sure you and your wedding vendors understand which areas of the house are off-limits to wedding workers and guests. Everyone working in the house should be briefed on the fact that it is a private home and special care must be taken to avoid damaging the house and its furnishings. Check with your caterer to find out whether you will need extra grills, coolers, roasters or a generator. Many houses can’t handle powering a tent as well as multiple types of cooking equipment.

2. Keep your host abreast of all your wedding-related activities.

As your schedule of events is finalized and delivery times are set, a complete schedule listing all vendor arrival and delivery times should be given to the homeowner so that he or she knows what to expect. The homeowner may be interested in helping you prepare for the big day, but don’t expect he/she will want to be the coordinator.

3. Compare the number of guests to the size of the house.

Consider how many bathrooms your host’s house has. Will they be able to handle all the flushing done that day without flooding the backyard? If not you may want to rent a portable bathroom. As a rule of thumb, you will need one toilet for every 35 guests.

4. Give a pre-wedding gift to your host.

By the morning of your event, have a beautiful floral arrangement or other personal gift, along with a sincerely written thank-you note, delivered to the homeowner.

5. Hire enough staff.

Be sure that throughout your event, there are workers assigned to handle cleanup and take care of any spills or other problems. Remember, this furniture isn’t rented but presumably near and dear to your hosts. If the furniture is minimal, you may need to rent more to cover all the guests at your wedding.

6. Be cautious when decorating.

Try not to damage the walls or furniture. If you do end up damaging furniture or the lawn, be prepared to handle the bill and talk it over with the homeowner.

7. Get all the permits and licensing in advance.

See if your homeowner’s insurance will cover this type of event. Talk to your insurance provider about whether they cover third party liability, and if not look into getting a short-term policy. If you don’t own a home or are looking for a different insurance method try a site like www.protectmywedding.com. It protects you in case of an unfortunate incident and can come with liquor liability.

8. Protect yourself and the homeowner.

You may need a city permit or fire department inspection to make sure you are following all the rules related to hosting this party. Where will everyone park? Depending on the size of your wedding, you will want to figure out the logistics before the cops show up.

9. Prepare for pests.

Is your wedding in a forestry area or will there be bugs around? Plan for citronella candles and tiki torches or to have a bug man spray hours before the wedding. The last thing you want is a guest to leave early because the bugs won’t leave them alone.

10. Have a plan B.

The weather is usually unpredictable so plan for potential inclement weather that may come your way. It’s better to pay the money for a tent than have to cancel your wedding or usher everyone inside.

11. Arrange a post-party cleaning.

After your event is over, the house should be professionally cleaned and all trash and other evidence of your party removed from the property. It’s not enough to merely fill a dozen black plastic trash bags and leave them for the poor homeowner! When you leave, there should be no sign that your party ever occurred. Be sure to have a worker on standby to remove any broken or damaged items and replace them or have them repaired on the first business day after your event.

12. Thanks again… and again.

And after your wedding, take a moment from your honeymoon to personally call your friend or relative and thank them for the loan of their home. A written thank-you note should be sent as a follow-up, underscoring how much it meant to you to use their beautiful home for such a special occasion in your life.

At age 14,  Sarah Williams had already chosen Maryland’s Eastern Shore as the backdrop for her wedding

Last August when the bride-to-be, now 25, booked a sprawling plantation on the Wye River for her reception, plans for the fairy tale wedding of her childhood dreams started to crystallize. She selected a caterer, florist and DJ for the September wedding, and her father, Stephen Williams, shelled out nearly $10,000 for the facility.

But by early December, the reception hall had filed for bankruptcy and gone up for public auction — without any warning to the Williams family.

Such a pre-wedding disaster is not unusual, wedding insurance providers say. During the last several years, many wedding insurance policyholders have filed claims because venues and vendors have gone out of business before the big day.

“The claims are shooting up through the walls — the DJ goes out of business, the photographer goes out of business, the venue takes your money and is actually in bankruptcy,” says Robert Nuccio, president and CEO of R.V. Nuccio & Associates, the program administrator for Fireman’s Fund wedding insurance. “When they take your money, they’re already out of business.”

Last year, about a third of wedding insurance claims with both Travelers Insurance (31%) and WedSafe, a unit of Aon, (38%) fell under vendor or venue mishaps.

While the recession is largely to blame for these suppliers going under, it has also prompted wedding financiers to approach their nuptials with financial caution, says Chantal Cyr, vice president of personal insurance for Travelers.

“People are more in tune than ever to protect their investments,” Cyr says. “It’s a significant investment — it’s like buying a car and not insuring a car.”

WedSafe has seen a 60% jump in policy sales since 2007, says Aon Vice President Steven Lauro, and Travelers has also seen steady increases in wedding insurance sales during the same period.

Premiums vary based on the overall cost of a wedding, and many insurance providers allow customers to cover wedding particulars — such as photography, the gown or wedding bands — for additional charges. Cancellation coverage typically insures these items, and liability insurance, which venues are increasingly requiring couples to carry, protects the hosts against injuries to guests or property damage.

Weddings cost an average of $26,501, according to the 2011 Brides American Wedding Study. To insure a typical wedding — a $25,000 celebration, for example — premiums range from $320 to $420, which includes both cancellation and liability coverage, as well as insurance for items such as attire, photography and wedding gifts.

“In this volatile economy, wedding insurance is a wise investment and only costs a fraction of the goods and deposits it covers,” says David Wood, president of the Association of Bridal Consultants.

However, if the wedding party knows its providers closely — or if the vendors are highly reputable — wedding insurance may not be necessary, Wood says.

Without a separate wedding insurance policy, couples can protect select aspects of their wedding through homeowner’s or renter’s insurance, which often covers wedding gifts and engagement rings. However, some couples are still unaware they can insure everything from the rehearsal dinner to the after party, several insurance representatives say.

“Some people just don’t realize that they have the option of protecting their wedding, and they don’t realize the risk that they’re running in not protecting it,” Lauro says.

Others, such as filmmaker Cory McGee, accept that risk. McGee was married last August and opted not to insure her wedding.

“I’m a huge risk-taker in life, and I never thought that buying wedding insurance was worth it because had I died or had something tragic happened before the wedding, I think it has something to do with fate,” McGee says, noting her wedding went off without a hitch.

Williams was more wary, and with good reason. With less than a year before the big day, it wouldn’t be easy for her to re-create the wedding she had pictured since her teens, but a policy her father purchased from Travelers helped them recover his full deposit and reserve a new waterfront location.

Although she pushed the ceremony back by a month, Williams found a new site on the Chester River, where she will tie the knot in October.

“She has the water again,” Stephen Williams says. “It made a painful situation a little easier.”

Insurance may have helped smooth this snag, but it might not be the last of Stephen Williams’ wedding anxieties. He has two more unmarried daughters.

June is one of the most popular months of the year to get married. That means brides-to-be are preparing for their long-awaited – and probably highly expensive – wedding day. While there are no guarantees for a successful marriage, a new type of business can guarantee the special day goes as planned.
Click here for audio of interview.

That’s something Seattle bride Kim Ducharme could really use. She’s had a recurring nightmare about her wedding dress since she got engaged 16 months ago.

Here’s what happens:

“I’d be getting married and my dress was missing. And then I’d have to get married in like, a weird dress. Sometimes it’d be in like a bath towel. It’s funny what you freak out about,” she says, laughing at the absurdity of the dream.

Ducharme is just two days away from her wedding day at the Woodlawn Park Zoo –which makes her “freak out” understandable.

And it turns out, her fear of something going wrong with her dress isn’t totally off base.

The Better Business Bureau is warning couples on their way to the altar about a number of scams plaguing the growing wedding industry. Last year alone, the bureau received about a thousand complaints against wedding related services. Apparently, when you hire a small army of vendors like Ducharme has, there’s a lot that can go wrong.

What can go wrong?

In all, Ducharme has hired 10 different vendors to pull off her dream wedding.

The average cost of wedding is about 24 thousand dollars with multiple vendors involved in the process. So getting hitched without a glitch is becoming more complicated. That’s led to a new kind of wedding business — wedding insurance.

“How many things do you own, or how many things do you have in your household worth 24-thousand dollars, that you don’t actually have insurance on?” says Jason Koehn, a wedding insurance salesman at ProtectMyWedding. com.

Koehn says we insure everything else that’s valuable in our lives, so why not the most important day in a couple’s life?

“You would definitely have insurance on a vehicle or jewelry or other things that you own that you’re spending that much money on, so the same thing kind of applies to your wedding.”

What does wedding insurance cover?

For about 200 dollars, policies cover a range of prospective problems. Vendor no-shows who pocket deposits, damaged wedding attire and hurricanes for those tropical destination weddings. So if you’re venue gets blown away, the insurer covers the cost of a new one.

There are only a handful of companies that offer wedding insurance but Koehn says they’ve seen a double digit increase in policies since they started offering them five years ago. And demand is on the rise.

Still, there’s one thing they don’t cover: cold feet.