Destination Weddings

[PeppyGPhiB]

I actually find destination weddings to be selfish, unless it's just immediate family invited. Most of the people I've known who've had them seemed to think it would just be fun to, say, get married on a beach in Hawaii, yet expected all their friends and family members to use their vacation time to fly there for the wedding. They didn't think at all about their guests and how sad they would be that they wouldn't be able to share in the special occasion. But mostly what I don't like about them is that they're a passive-agressive way of UN-inviting people to your wedding. You would like to have all those people at your wedding, but you don't want to pay for it, so you invite them all to your wedding in Hawaii knowing that most of them won't be able to make it. All so you can say that Yes, you invited Brother's Friend Sally, but she didn't couldn't make it.

My advice for people considering a destination wedding:

1. Invite a small number of people so you don't have a bunch of friends feeling obligated to go or sad that they can't go.
2. If you're doing it just because your guest list for a home town wedding would be too big, just CUT YOUR GUEST LIST. Get some balls. No, you really don't have to invite ALL of your cousins, even if you're Irish or Italian Catholic. Chances are a lot of those family members wouldn't be able to make it overseas for a wedding anyway, so what's the point of leaving town? Take a look at the guest list and set some guidelines for deciding whom from each side you will invite. My opinion: if you won't recognize/know them in the receiving line, they don't have to be there. Just have a small wedding! You can do it! Really!
3. Elope.

[Jill1228]

Then again, having a big wedding can be selfish...


Why we did the destination wedding:
I had NO desire to go back to Virginia to have a church wedding. We are not religious and I stated before if my mom (or his mom) had their ways we would have the mass church wedding--not gonna happen

I suggested doing Peace Arch Park on the US Canadian border (near his family). He didn't want an outside wedding.

We looked at each other and said "Vegas baby!"
We didn't have to worry about keeping folx entertained.


We almost eloped. We got our license there during a trip in Jan 2001. We were both thinking "let's do it" but we didn't relay to each other what we were thinking.
When we told his mom we were gonna do Vegas, she got huffy and said "Well I am not going". We had 2 words for her:

"don't go!"
She did wind up going. My mother was all about losing her "Vegas Virginity"!
One person who should have been there wasn't...that is a whole 'nother talk show!

Everyone who was there had a blast. It was my aunt's last vacation before she passed away in the summer of 2002 from cancer I brought a little joy into her life

So if some of us are selfish, so be it! I have no regrets!

[AOII_LB93]

Originally Posted by xo_kathy

Didn't have one but know quite a few people who have. They all say they are so glad they did and do not regret it at all.

If you want to keep it small, I'd head for Italy or France or something. If you do the Caribbean, lots more people will find it "easy" to get there.

France is too prohibitive for destination weddings, as are French territories and islands. I looked into it as my first option(since I'm a French teacher), and there is a 40 day residency requirement. As romantic as France may sound, it's a pain in the butt to do. You'd be better off going elsewhere in Europe first.
Italy is much easier...looked in to that as well. =)