Your reasons for having a destination wedding?

[Pappy]

Reasons why 

1. We both love to travel, especially to place with a beach! 
2. Both our families are from all over the place. 
3. We didn't want to deal with the cost/stress associated with a local wedding.
4. We love the idea of celebrating with our closest family and friends all week long.
5. Backdrop for photos would be amazing 
6. We didn't want the traditional wedding

 

Good luck on your decision!

[sgreen99]

We have many reasons... But the huge on for me is I have just always pictured getting married on the beach. I feel most at peace when I'm near the ocean, I can't imagine anything else!  After we went on a trip to Cancun last year he was 100% sold, so it has been what we've wanted even before getting engaged.  But the other reasons:

 

1)  He has a HUGE Dutch family, and we simply could not afford to have an at home wedding, we are footing most of the bill ourselves so it just isn't reasonable. Our $12,000 budget wouldn't get very far up here!!

2)  Our families are super spread out.  We are here in Edmonton, most of his fam in Northern BC and mine in the US so people would have to travel regardless. It makes more sense for everyone to gather in one spot

3) we both have divorced parents, so having a full week to spend with everyone ensures there are no hurt feelings about spending time with one and not the other, etc etc.  Those with split parents will understand what I mean I'm sure!!

4)  I don't get to spend a ton of time with lots of my family and nor does he as everyone is far away, we love the idea of getting to see everyone for an entire week and really spend QT with everyone.

[melissa1017]

We love traveling, and like to share that passion with our family and friends.  Last year, we took my parents on a cruise and had so much fun. I was just planning on it being a smaller wedding with our parents, and one friend (and their guest) each.  However, many more people have shown interest, and it could be a fun time!  Of course we will want some time alone after the wedding (after all, it is our honeymoon too!).  Also, we moved to Minnesota about 6 months ago from Idaho, and most of our family and friends are there.  So we were originally planning on having a wedding there.  So it was either a destination wedding to Idaho (bleh!) or to somewhere tropical... hard choice!

[cherany]

A tropical beach wedding was really the only one we could picture ourselves having, and with friends scattered across so many areas of the world, it just made sense.  We're from opposite sides of the country, too, so people would have to travel, regardless.  We didn't like the idea of having it in either of our home states, anyway, so off to paradise it is! 

[Oct 2012 Bride]

When I first thought of a destination wedding. Way before ever planning one I had mixed thoughts. I loved the idea but I wanted to have everyone I know to be there. That was years ago.

 

But now that I'm engaged I see it completely different. DW are beautiful. You are in a paradise marring the man of your dreams. what could be more perfect than that. I knew there is no way I could have the wedding of my dreams here in North Carolina with the money we have. It would be a really cheap budge wedding. It would be more of what I can afford to do instead of what I want to do.

 

Of my married friends not one had a hooneymoon. And another had to work on her big day and when the wedding was over she had to wait while her husband helped clean up. I didn't want that. I know I can get people to help and do some work. But I don't feel right about it. I want my guests to fully be guest and just show up and have a good time. I want everyone to have as good of a time as us. I don't want to be working or stressing out the day of my wedding. I want to fully be able to focus on me, my husband and our day. And I wanted to have a honeymoon.

 

DW weddings are purely the way to go for us. We are paying for everything ourselves. But even if we weren't we would still go this route. It just makes sense to us.

[DestinationGirl]

For me, I prefer the destination wedding for its beauty and simplicity. Plus, who wouldn't want to spend a week in paradise with their closest family and friends?!

[2012mrstobe]

For both FI and I, this is not our first wedding so we both wanted to do something different. We are both avid travelers and knew we would be going on a honeymoon somewhere anyway, so after doing some research on resorts, wedding costs, etc. I realized that we could get more bang for our buck! After all the planning and money that went into the first wedding, I knew I didn't want to go that route. Also, my little sister got married just last year and a very close friend of mine got married last year as well. Almost every conversation I had with them was about the high cost of this or that for their at home wedding. That was confirmation that there had to be another way!

 

Besides, it would be a great time to get our immediate family and very close friends together to have an awesome vacation!

[agm04]

1.  I didn't want a 400 guest wedding, with half of those being people who aren't *really* part of my life but would have to be invited.  Sounds harsh, but I know you guys get it.

 

2.  I'm from TX and we live in NYC.  I didn't want to be planning a wedding long distance - I knew most of the work and decision making would fall on my mom, and I didn't want to do that to her or relinquish that much control!

 

3. FI's family is spread around, so 75% of our guests would have to travel anyway.  It's going to be about the same amount of money for them to fly to and stay in Grand Cayman as it would in NYC - probably less.  Staying somewhere decent here is really expensive.

 

The hard part was deciding WHERE once we decided destination!

[Sexyvt123]

I know this might sound horrible but the reason we decided on a destination wedding is because my mom agreed to pay for the wedding if we did it in Barbados.  My mom and dad are both from Barbados and a lot of my family is still there.  So with that being said I went with a destination wedding instead of a local wedding home. 

[agm04]

Originally Posted by Sexyvt123 

 

I know this might sound horrible but the reason we decided on a destination wedding is because my mom agreed to pay for the wedding if we did it in Barbados.  My mom and dad are both from Barbados and a lot of my family is still there.  So with that being said I went with a destination wedding instead of a local wedding home. 

That doesn't sound horrible at all!  Paying for a wedding is no small undertaking...and it's not like a Barbados wedding is shabby either!