Inviting someone to attend a wedding seems like a small enough favor to ask. After all, you don't get married every day. Plus, you've been to countless ceremonies and receptions over the years, many of them in the middle of nowhere, where you spent the hours before and after the wedding watching the paint dry. Now it's time for those people to return the favor.

However, if you've ever been to an out-of-town wedding where you were bored out of your mind, you know that even though guests attend a wedding so they may wish the couple well, and they would not want to miss it for the world (no matter where the bride and groom choose to say “I do”), they aren't always thrilled about making the trip. And since we're such a mobile society today, you'll probably have at least a few people traveling a great distance just to watch you walk down the aisle. Why not make it worth their while by choosing a spot they might otherwise never get to see?

Think of it: So many people dream of touring the countryside of France, or visiting the volcanoes in Hawaii. Having your wedding in a really interesting place will probably ensure that most of your guests will at least try to make the trip. In fact, more of them may show up than would have for an in-town ceremony, because they'll be intrigued by the whole thing. This isn't just another typical wedding! It's an opportunity for them to say to themselves, “Well, we've always talked about going there, so let's do it.”

Here's what's expected of guests (and what guests may expect), whether you choose to have an in-town ceremony or a destination wedding. Guests will:

• Pay for their travel

• Pay for their hotel

• Pay for their meals, with the exception of the reception

• Look for ways to fill their time before and after the wedding

• Want to have time to talk with you

For these reasons alone, destination weddings make so much sense these days, and even more so if a huge percentage of your guests will be traveling a great distance for the wedding. Let's say you're originally from Boston, you went to college in Houston, and you live in San Diego now. Your San Diego — based fiancé, meanwhile, is from Chicago, went to school in Ohio, and spent time traveling and working in Europe after college. You've got wedding guests coming from literally around the globe, so you might as well pick a place that's going to delight everyone, make them feel as though their time and money have been well-spent, and give them a chance to catch up with the two of you over the course of several days.

Heck, your whole family can be from the same hometown and still never see each other, so a destination wedding is a great way for everyone to get together for a family vacation. They'll be able to relax, have some fun, and let their hair down in a way that they wouldn't be able to during a one-day traditional wedding.

Consider, too, the chance to have some in-law bonding time. Does your mother realize how much fun the groom's mom is? Is one afternoon of fishing all it will take to make your dad and your future father-in-law realize that they really are “partners in crime”? Your wedding could be a uniting experience for the whole family, something that in-town weddings, with their heightened pace and heightened tensions, usually aren't.