Destination Wedding

Destination weddings tend to have a higher decline rate than the average 80%. Even though your guest list is smaller, there is no guarantee that everyone will be able to make it, even if within the US.

I also think some couples promote their wedding as a fun vacation to their guests, perhaps to legitimize the reason for the guests' financial investment. My idea of a vacation is not to be on anyone's schedule except my own, and would refrain from giving more 30 hrs to a destination wedding, But family or couples vacations are not my style anyway.

SO you mean like getting a AirBnb, that's a god idea rather than having a expensive hotel. At least then you would be able to have your own vendors and do thing more of what you want.

That's what we are asking our guests to do. We are going to a restaurant and asking the guests that decide to come to pay for their own meals.

That's how I'm thinking for our day. I'm only inviting close family (aunts, uncles and close cousins) and a few close friends (sandbox/day 1 friends). I know my aunt as well as his love vacations.

I don't see you as being judgmental. We're all here to get ideas and to see what will work for our day, most of these ladies do have me seeing want I can add or cut out as well. Our day is costing us about $6,000 and not trying to add anything unnecessary like guest bags, brunches and other things like that. I do think that they are great add-ons and would love to do but we don't want to pay for any of that and have our budget double for one day that is about us.

I think you might be overestimating your wedding's importance to others. No amount of love is enough to fly hours, pay hotel, and not be fed or hosted properly. I would further think the hosts didn't care for my needs and my invite just obligatory in a tacky way. And I'm going to tell you now, if you make people open up their wallets on your wedding day, they will think less of your spouse as a provider. It's sexist, but family will find ways to gossip. So protect your spouse and call grandma to ask for secret funding. If persons pay their way for next-day brunches, that is reasonable. But, you can't just say "it's my day" and treat your guests like an afterthought.

Also to add my POV is that most parties I go to are destination so I'm used to it. I choose to live in a city away. I'm willing to work all day and take a red-eye, but have declined a wedding where I must add a 3-4 hrs drive. One example that was kinda disappointing, was a wedding in Singapore. I flew from west coast US to party, offered to bring bottles from duty free. But, the couple didn't have a welcome party, there was no dancing at their day wedding, and no afterparty with both bride and groom. The groom's friends all came from different countries and the bride never talked to us. The good part of that trip was I multi-tasked a 4-day solo adventure in Vietnam beforehand (my own vacay) and met my now husband at the wedding, before leaving to go back to work.

Be careful with the rental properties. Often times they may have a clause that says you cannot host parties there so I would definitely recommend checking that out before booking anything! Then again it depends on where you're at- I know for a fact that airbnb doesn't allow it right now with COVID, but if you do direct bookings with locations you may be able to. We were in Mexico for a wedding two weeks ago and the airbnb they put the family up in had hosted small weddings in the past!

I actually don't think a lot of what we're doing is expensive. We've had an idea of what we wanted for years- destination with all of our closest family and friends (about 95 people). Our families are very close knit so it very much so is also an investment in creating a family vacation and experience for our immediate families with options for extended family or friends who choose to stick around to join us on our adventures. I think it all depends on what your vision is- we had a vision of something very classy and being able to subsidize some cost for family members who are not as privileged financially as ourselves so obviously the cost of our wedding is going to be higher that way. Something smaller and (what sounds like but I could be totally wrong) a more casual event like you're wanting is 100% going to be a lot less pricey but it's all in what you're imagining and desiring for your day