Destination vs. Home-City Wedding

[bennyboy96]

My fiancee and I are considering a destination wedding in Belize in April or May of next year. Her mother''s family is from there and her dad met her mom there while he spent 5 years there in the Peace Corps. Her parents also were married there. She has a few family members there. The location in Belize would be somewhere on Amgeris Caye in or around San Pedro. This wasn''t considered an option until she talked to her aunt who had a Catholic wedding on the beach in Belize. Apparently, in Belize, you can have a Catholic wedding outside on the beach if there is a canopy/gazebo type structure.

The alternative is a wedding in San Diego were both us and our parents live. The majority of her extended family lives in New Orleans with some on the East Coast. The majority of my extended family lives on the East Coast in Pennsylvania and DC. So both extended families would have to travel to either location, San Diego or Belize. The majority of our friends live in Southern California and would thus have to travel to Belize but not to San Diego. If in SD, it''d be in a Catholic church.

We would probably invite 200-250 people to the wedding regardless of location, and obviously expect many more to come to a SD wedding vs. Belize. I would guestimate that maybe 50-80 would go to Belize but that is just a wild guess. The main reason we''re considering Belize is it seems to be easier and much less stressful to do a destination wedding. Both our mothers are extremely high-strung and we want to keep the stress on them and us to a minimum.

My main question I guess is if anyone has had a destination wedding with more than 25 people and ended up regretting it and wishing they had a traditional wedding in their hometown or where they live. Also, has anyone had a traditional wedding at home and ended up wishing they had gone away for a destination wedding? If you''ve had a destination wedding with a good amount of guests, what % of invitees attended the destination wedding? Any other suggestions or input for us to consider while making this decision would be helpful. Thanks !

 

[Mara]

we had a destination wedding in hawaii, we live in california. alot of our guests were traveling anyway, greg''s family is in the east coast so they were traveling to CA for the wedding, hawaii is not that far from there!

for a local wedding here we would have had about 100 invitees and about 80 actual guests...we invited all of the same people to hawaii but only about 30 people were there total. it was a great time! part of what we loved about the destination wedding was that it wasn''t just one day or more specifically 6 hours that people celebrated. we had things going on for days before the wedding and then people were still there afterwards. it gave us more time to spend with Greg''s family and friends since they had traveled all that way. plus we got to spend our time with the people who mattered most rather than with 80 people who we knew and who my parents wanted to invite etc etc.

in the end it was actually cheaper to do the destination wedding for us, and we did alot of ''extra'' things for the guests that we would not have been able to do otherwise, aka paying for everyone to attend the rehearsal dinner, giving goodie gift bags to everyone who came etc.

so for us it was the best decision to go destination. at first people complained when we changed the venue but after a few months they all quit whining and booked their travel.

 

[jellybean]

We had a big wedding (>300 guests) in our hometown. Looking back, we wish we were able to do the destination wedding. The reason we didn''t is b/c our elderly grandparents would not be able to make the trip, and we really wanted them there. So for us, the fact that our closest family couldn''t come sealed the hometown wedding for us.

My girlfriend did the destination wedding and she was disappointed that more people didn''t attend it. She also had people coming from all over the country, however most chose not to attend it (I believe she invited about 150 and had 25 total, mostly family, come). Her guests were willing to travel cross country but apparently not to Hawaii (where her wedding was). I too couldn''t go b/c I couldn''t take that much time off of pharmacy school. She also said she felt like she had to spend most of the time out there with her family/guests b/c they traveled all that way for her. She felt guilty doing things alone with her new husband, but she''s always been like that.

I guess I would suggest asking your immediate family and those that you "really" want there and see if they would attend a destination wedding. Many people are not able to take extended time off of work, or may not be able to travel for whatever reason. It''s also a lot more expensive for them. I would find out how many would attend before you make a decision. Now some will say "it''s your wedding, and those that want to come will find a way", and that was my girlfriend''s attitude, however, she was disappointed with the end result.

 

[Mara]

JB brings up a great point..aka asking who you REALLY want to be there if they will come with you destination. We asked our closest friends and family if they would come. When we found out that they would and/or they''d try their hardest, that pushed us closer. Then we did a scouting mission to check out Kauai and see if anything really spoke to us. It did, we loved it. So we came back and decided to do it. Everyone that came was most important to us. Even my grandma came! It was great.

The one thing that WAS a drag is that YES you do feel obligated to ensure that all guests are having a great time at all times and that everyone is ''taken care of''. We had some solo friends come and so we had to adopt them into our group or if we were going out with our parents, make sure they were invited over to our friend''s BBQ when we weren''t around etc. It was somewhat stressful at the time, having to finalize wedding plans and still make sure all guests were tended to, busy, happy etc. But in the end the memories for us were great. That''s time we would not have been able to spend with them if they came to a local wedding, we''d have been too swamped and you are in your own house and it''s very segmented. But on a property with everyone there, it was more of a camraderie feeling. Almost everyone even turned out to see the rehearsal which was funny. We have a big picture of the all 30 people that our photographer took the morning of the wedding rehearsal. That''s special.

 

[teebee]

We were considering a destination wedding to Mexico and I do still wish it were feasible for us...

But, like JB, we had to consider who we really wanted to be there and my grandparents were at the very tip top of my list. My grandfather is a heart patient and must have oxygen with him ~ dealing with supplemental oxygen on a plane, plus making arrangements to have an oxygen tank for him in a foreign country (along with all of the ''what if something happens'' scenarios ~ I simply could not ever forgive myself if he got sick and needed medical attention... in Mexico). On the other hand, my FI''s initial objection to the destination wedding was that his family could not afford the trip ~ I tried to explain at least 1 million times, without success, that we could pay for 6-10 of his family members to go for a few nights and still end up spending less money than we would for a wedding here in the states... Eventually, it just became more than I was willing to deal with and my grandpa not being able to be there to walk me down the aisle was the deal breaker.

We are now having a ''semi-destination'' wedding in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. It is so beautiful there (not the beach, but beautiful) and it''s within a 2-5 hour drive for most of our guests, although a few are traveling from Ohio, Indiana, Seattle, and Texas.

Anyhow, I do have a good friend that had a beach wedding in Mexico and she had about 45 guests. She has said over and over again that she has no regrets and would do it again in a heartbeat. I think that everyone that was really important to her was able to attend (although I think she ended up paying for her brother and his family''s trip).

I think in an ideal situation, one in which all of my ''must-have'' guests would be able to attend, I would go for the destination wedding...

 

[kittykat]

I am actually having a destination wedding in Belize! We were going to have a local wedding-mostly for family not at all what we wanted. At first I was having regrets when we commited and sent save the date cards-mostly because there are a lot of things that I have access to here that I dont there (ie the flowers I want, or the photographer I want). I''ve been able to overcome all those things with the thought that our wedding in Los Angeles would have been exactly what I wanted, but totally boring (compared to Belize). I hear that Belize is really beautiful and very special. I vote for Belize. I would reccomend the Victoria House in Sand Pedro for your wedding.

 

[bennyboy96]

kittykat-
when are you planning to marry in Belize? We went to San Pedro on Ambergris Caye down there in March and had a great time. My fiancee''s mother is from Belize and her dad met her while working in the Peace Corps down there. They got married there so it''d be kinda special to do it there....not to mention it''d be much more exciting than here in San Diego. The Victoria House is beautful....we first looked into VH but found that there''s a 40 person maximum for wedding and that all guests must stay at the hotel. We are just in the very initial stages so we don''t know how many people will attend, but there may be 50-75, and we wanted to give guests a less expensive lodging option than the $200-300/night Victoria House. We''re looking into this option to keep the stress on our mothers to a minimum which will in turn help keep us sane. Also since we''d probably have 200-250 guests at a san diego wedding and 50-75 in Belize, we can spend more on perks and extra while still saving multiple thousands. Will you be honeymooning there as well? Let me know if you have any questions about the area, etc.