Comparison Shopping
So what's the monetary difference between paying for an in-town wedding and paying for a ceremony in a far-off land? There is no hard-and-fast answer to that question, because just like a regular wedding, destination weddings can be as grand or as small as you'd prefer.
The Breakdown: What You Will Pay For
Some couples are frightened away from planning a destination wedding because they assume that they'll end up paying not only for a ceremony and reception, but also for their guests' expenses. Not true. Here's a list of what you will pay for:
Your own travel
Your lodging
All wedding-related expenses
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As for picking up the tab for your attendants' travel and lodging, there are two schools of thought on that. Most traditional wedding etiquette states that the bride's family should pay for attendants' travel and lodging. It's easy to see the logic in extending that kind of generosity by offering to pay for your attendants' travel-related expenses for a destination wedding. However, in reality, most attendants end up footing the bill for their flights and hotels.
Here's the deal: If you really want to do something nice and/or you're saving a lot of money by having a destination wedding, it never hurts to contribute to someone else's travel expenses, especially if you know that your best friend will have to sell her CD collection just to pay for her plane ticket. If you're doing this for one member of the bridal party, though, you have to do it for all of them (or risk a mutiny on the altar when word of your selective generosity starts spreading).
Family is a different matter. You can help out a close relative with travel expenses without paying for everyone else, but you might put yourself in a spot. It's best to give this kind of assistance confidentially, so it won't seem as though you're playing favorites.
When you ask someone to be in your bridal party, or when you're discussing the wedding with a guest before the invitations have been mailed, be forthright about what they'll be paying for — namely, their entire trip. You don't need to blurt out, “You'll have to spend $150 a night on a hotel room!” You can simply mention that you are going to book a block of rooms and that you'll let them know what kind of discount the resort is giving to the members and guests of your wedding party. That message comes through loud and clear.
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If a sibling just can't afford the travel expenses and you can help her out, go ahead. But do it quietly and with the condition that if she tells anyone else, you'll dunk her in the ocean once you arrive. Weddings often unearth long-buried familial tensions, something you do not want to deal with during your wedding week.
When you mail the invitations, enclose the travel information, including the name of the hotel and the rate under which you have reserved your block of rooms; names of other nearby hotels; and airline information. (More on this in Chapter 6.)
Good Things Come in Packages
Resorts that regularly play host to destination weddings have the planning down to a science, which is one reason so many brides and grooms are flying off to tropical weddings: Planning is a snap.
What you'll typically encounter when planning a destination wedding at a resort is that you'll have options for each area of the wedding. For example, you'll choose a site for the ceremony: Will it be on the beach or in the resort's chapel? Do you want your reception on the patio or inside the restaurant? Would you like to have a harpist, flutist, or pianist during the ceremony? What about a vocalist? Do you want a photographer for six hours or eight? Black-and-white pictures or color?
You'll choose food and music for the reception, and you may have an option of choosing transportation for a grand entrance. Basically, you'll make decisions about everything you would for an in-town wedding; the difference is that your choices will be limited to what's offered. Most popular destinations have an array of choices; you won't have only two types of flowers to choose from, for example, and your choices of ceremony and reception sites may be quite extensive also. For many brides, this is just fine — it's part of the reason they've chosen the site. For other brides, this just won't do. They have definite, creative ideas, which rules out choosing their wedding elements from an à la carte list.
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If you're finding yourself feeling walled in rather than relieved by the choices, you may be better off planning a wedding in a less popular spot, where you'll most likely have to find your own florist, musicians, and other professionals. It's more legwork, sure, but you'll be happier in the end.
If you've fallen in love with a certain resort but not necessarily with the choices you've been given for your ceremony and reception, you may be able to find some wiggle room. It never hurts to ask if the florist might do something really different with your bouquet, or if you can do something unique with the table settings. You may not get what you want, but it never hurts to ask.
The Upside of Keeping Expenses Low
There's nothing wrong with booking your wedding in a popular place, but the hotter the spot, the bigger the bill for you — and for your guests, some of whom may not be able or willing to fork over a whole lot of money to stay at a luxury resort. One way to get around feeling as though you should help friends and family members with travel expenses is to choose a location that isn't insanely pricey. It's well within the realm of reality to find a beautiful spot that will fit (mostly) everyone's budget.
Take Brian and Jeanne's wedding, for example. When this Manhattan-based couple decided to get hitched, they knew they wanted something out of the ordinary. Brian's family spends its summers on the Finger Lakes in upstate New York, which are breathtakingly beautiful in the summer months. Deciding on this general location was the couple's starting point.
Although the Finger Lakes region was somewhat out of the way for Jeanne's family members (who are scattered all across the country), it was a decently centralized location for the couple's New York City — based friends and for Brian's family, most of whom are from Buffalo. The majority of the guests were able to drive to the wedding and find very reasonably priced lodging in the area. Brian and Jeanne feel that their choice of location brought more family to the wedding than might have attended otherwise, and definitely more than would have attended if they had booked a cruise ship or resort wedding. Because upstate New York is fairly inexpensive (especially when compared with paying for food and lodging at a resort in the Caribbean), travel costs weren't a huge deterrent. In fact, several of their guests decided to explore the state, popping over to Niagara Falls and/or the Adirondack region for a couple of days.
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If your family is frugal and you want them to witness your wedding vows, don't choose an expensive location. Although some guests will simply decline the invitation if it is beyond their means, other family members will feel obligated to attend. You don't want anyone to view your wedding as a hardship, so do your best to accommodate those you hold nearest and dearest.
The moral of the story? If you really want people to show up for your destination wedding, be realistic not only about your own budget, but also what your guests are willing and able to spend in order to attend.
