Destination weddings are the most logistically demanding orders we ship. The wine has to cross customs, survive a temperature swing of forty degrees during transit, and arrive at a venue that does not have refrigerated storage. We have shipped to Mexico, the Caribbean, Italy, Portugal, Spain, France, and Greece. The patterns are consistent.
Lead time
Domestic California weddings need one to two weeks from approval to delivery. International weddings need six to eight weeks: two weeks for production, two to three weeks for transit and customs, one to two weeks buffer for venue receipt and storage. Customers who place destination orders inside four weeks of the wedding may not receive the bottles in time. We will tell you this honestly at the studio.
Customs
Most international customs offices require a Customs Form 2848, a Certificate of Label Approval from TTB, and a commercial invoice. Our dispatch team prepares all three. The customer signs a power-of-attorney letter that lets us file on their behalf. The customer's role is to confirm the venue address and the destination country's import duty (which is paid at the customer's expense, separately from the per-bottle price).
Cold chain
Hot transit ruins wine. We use insulated shippers with phase-change gel for warm-weather destinations and air freight rather than ocean freight for any destination over five days at sea. The customer's venue receives the bottles in a temperature-controlled cooler at fifty-five to sixty degrees. The wine rests in the cooler for forty-eight hours before service.