Driving 4 hours

That’s a very far drive. Unless it was someone very close I wouldn’t attend because either that’s 8 hours of driving total or paying for a hotel. If I drove home that night I would leave the reception early.

That's an overnight stay at a hotel drive.

One thing to consider if you do choose this venue is picking out vendors that far away too. My venue is almost 2 hours away and I did alot of phone and email consultations to choose dj, photographer, florist, hair and make up. Once I narrowed it down to 2 I still did in person meetings. I didn't take this into account when I was choosing the venue, plus we will have to take a day off to do the wedding license and last minute drop off things a few days before the wedding.

We absolutely adored a venue that was 3.5 hours away. All guests would have to travel there, the guests from OOT would’ve had to travel twice as much. As much as we adored it, it was too inconvenient for guests. Majority of our guests are local, and we have some coming from OOT. Our venue is in our city and super convenient for all our guests.

A 4hout drive requires at least a night or two in a hotel. Personally i wouldn’t drive 4 hours to attend a wedding the same day. I wouldn’t want to be in formal wear for 4 hours in a car. Thus it’d require me to pay for an additional night.

Our venue is about 8 hours away from most of our guests, all of those being my family, but they’re all accustomed to flying and staying overnight for everything it wasn’t a problem for us to choose it. The rest of our guests live decently nearby.

I personally wouldn’t mind driving 4 hours to attend a wedding but I enjoy any reason to roadtrip.

I don’t think I would choose this venue if it were me. But I know my situation and most of my guests wouldn’t be happy with the drive and a hotel room. And if it were me as a guest it would probably be the same. I would have to find people to take care of my pets for 2 days or spend more money to board them for an event where I’m typically just gone day.

Thanks everyone thats helpful. Its just so beautiful lol but i feel its important to consider the guest. Im most definitely not a bridezilla. I try to make everyone happy lol

My venue was about 2 hours away so most of our guests stayed the night, while some even came the night before and made a weekend out of it. 4 hours definitely requires a hotel block.

On the other hand, if you decide to use that venue anyway, just be aware it’s possible that not many people will go. So long as your VIPs would like to make the trip and you’re comfortable with a good portion of your guest list not showing up, then it would be okay in my book.

My venue is about 3.5 hours from where I live. We’re planning our wedding in the town my parents retired. We did research places closer to home but the pricing at our venue was better than similar places where we live and my mom has some medical problems and doesn’t travel well so we did it to be convenient for her.
Everyone is going to an OOT guest and some would have to travel further than me. It is a vacation town so I think some people will make a mini-vacation out if it but I do know that the distance is a turn off.
Keep in mind that you may have to do tastings, walkthroughs or other meetings with vendors that would require you to make that 4 hour trip possibly several times. It’s just something to think about.

ETA: grammar, was on mobile and autocorrect got me

Our venue is 1 1/2 hours for us and up to 2 1/2 hours for some of our guests. I already feel badly about that. I wouldn't want to do four hours.

My venue was in my hometown, 6 hours from us, 5 hours (in another direction) from where many of H's family and friends live, and a flight away for our other friends scattered all over. About 60% of our guest list was OOT, which would have been the case in either of our hometowns. Where we live would be even worse - 95% POT.

A few things:
Expect a higher decline rate, especially if you invite outside of your closest circle.
Potentially expect smaller gifts, as people will spent a small fortune on travel and accommodations. I am still honored by the amount of money and time so many people must have spent on coming to celebrate with us.
Provide really good food and entertainment since your guests are traveling (do this anyway, but especially do it if they're spending a lot of money and effort to be there).
Provide transportation to a hotel, so guests can imbibe and not have to drive back. Also have a block somewhere so they can all stay at the same hotel and hang out when not at the wedding. We also did hotel guest bags with treats as an extra thank you for our OOTers.
Consider having a welcome dinner the night before for everyone who is already in town, even if it's just pizza or bbq. We did this, again, as a thank you to everyone for traveling and to give us more time to visit and more time for then to visit with each other.

You could organize a coach or something to transprt people. I more worry about people driving after drinking.

My venue is 3 hours away from where I live, but most of my guests are coming from OOT and this location is actually closer for some of them (still 6+ hours of driving for OOT guests, or a plane ride to Chicago rather than to Detroit). We loved the venue, and the location is near the beaches of Lake Michigan, so many of our guests are going to be making a vacation out of it! We set up a hotel block with transportation provided to the venue so guests can use that if they choose to, or there are tons of airbnbs in the area as well!