Marrying in a different state than home town...

I don't think it's too much to think your family and very best friends would travel from PA to NC for your wedding. Given how infrequently they have traveled in the past, you may be expecting too much in thinking they would also travel to you to shop..... Maybe you could go to them for dress shopping?

Hi Kimberly! I can totally relate! I live in DC, got married in NC, and my parents live in Ohio - so we were all over the place.

It's absolutely reasonable to ask your family and bridesmaids to save and travel for your wedding, but additional pre-wedding events and appointments can be tough - travel takes a lot of time and money! The great news is that you have lots of time until your wedding, so you can plan strategically. I tried to pre-plan and schedule as much as possible: I scheduled dress shopping appointments with my mom and sister over holidays when I knew we would be in the same place, and every time we spent a weekend down in NC I'd try to schedule as many planning tasks as humanely possible! (No joke - we scheduled engagement pictures, food and cake tasting, a venue tour, and a floral mock-ups all in one NC weekend)

If you can consolidate the number of trips you're taking up to PA or they are taking down to NC to get the most out of your time together it will also help them out a lot in terms of travel!

I live 2 hours from my mom and friends that wanted to go dress shopping with me. They kept asking when I was going to THEM to dress shop. I really didn't want to since 1) I am always expected to go to them for literally everything 2) it's my wedding 3) I wanted to be able to shop somewhere local to me so if I had to go back to the salon I wouldn't have to make a 2 hour trip every time.

I ended up asking local friends to go with me after I made an apt that I was going to just go to by myself. My friends from back home and my mom wouldn't come down. I'm glad they didn't though because my mom would have spent the whole time trying to hide dresses that are more than $99 and my friend would have told me everything was ugly since we have very different styles. I texted her a picture of the veil I love and she told me it was ugly and veils are stupid so I am not exaggerating when I say she would do that lol

View Quoted Comment The only pre-wedding thing they would need to come down for are the dresses. Everything else is just my fiance and I working on.

I would not have expectations for them to come down for dress shopping. While it would be great, I definitely would not expect it. I am living in Georgia and my family is in NY. I went to them to dress shop because it was important to me that they be there and it is easier for me as one person to travel than all of them.