Posted 14 May 2008 - 11:39 AM
Oh, I so totally feel your pain! It took me three months to pick a location and a hotel for the exact same reason -- guilt over asking my guests to pay so much money because I kept falling in love with beautiful expensive resorts! I had to ask myself this -- Yes, it is my wedding and I have one chance to make this perfect for me and my FI, so what is most important to me? In the end I decided to split the difference b/w luxury and cost.
I tried to picture myself in my guests' position -- If I opened an invitation to their wedding and found out the price was $XXXX to attend, what would my reaction be? Because I wouldn't ask my guests to do something for me that I wouldn't do in return for them.
From there, I came up with a top end figure and narrowed down hotel options. There were still going to be a few people who were not going to be pleased with the costs no matter what but the majority of those were not the "closest family and friends". We wish they could come and they might still surprise us (as others have mentioned, they can also stay at other hotels nearby if they wish), but they won't make or break our wedding. And I knew that if I settled on a hotel I would spend the whole time yearning for something better -- and that would definitely be a long term regret.