Stuck on venues!!

I would choose the destination wedding if you wanted to illuminate some people from the guest list. Lol
local is good because people are not forced to spend a lot of money to attend your wedding.
Good luck with your choice

After a LOT of discussion over pros & cons, guests, budget etc we have decided to go destination! We will host a party when we get back after our honeymoon for those who couldn't make it. It just fits better with what we want and we have already discussed the cost with our guests / bridal party. We have set a max. price for our guests that we think is completely reasonable, and much lower compared to any other weddings we have been invited to.

We are super excited to be able to get married on the island that we spent our first vacation as a couple at, as well as where we got engaged!

Thank you for all the input, it was DEFINITELY appreciated and some great points were brought up.

xoxo

My future husband and I are from different parts of Australia, so I am going with neutral territory, Sydney. That way all the guest are coming in and our parents are no complaining about us playing favorites. I found a beautiful outdoor function venue that I am in the process of planing the decoration for. We are still long way out till our due date but hopefully everything will go well. All my friends told me put your ides and desires first, it is your day, just the two of you, friends and family will fall into place

We chose local because:

1) Neither of our dads like to travel (this basically sold it for us! We wanted our dads there!)

2) His dad wouldn't even be able to travel

3) We wanted people to be there to celebrate with us (destination weddings tend to be smaller)

4) Very expensive for guests to go!

5) My passport expired and I didn't want to renew just to renew it again when I changed my name

6) We're getting married in the summer and Canada is hot enough for me!

We were also debating on this in the beginning of our planning stages whether to have it locally or in Mexico. We decided to go locally, just because we pushed the wedding to an earlier date. I would have definitely planned a destination wedding if we had more time, but I am happy to be having a local wedding (more guest can attend). I find the pros of having a local wedding is you have more control of the planning and details. Rather then planning over the phone with one of their local planners (communication may be a problem), and the added cost of hiring and flying a wedding planner to a destination wedding. The pros of a destination wedding is its like a mini vacation for you guest as well, your in a different country, and a lot of the planning is done for you.

We are doing ours locally but we have a friend that wanted to do a destination wedding in the Dominican but they changed their mind in the end as most of their wedding guests weren't able to attend so they changed it to a local wedding instead.

We were debating between a destination wedding and something close to home. Ultimately it came down to the people we wanted there: we knew some people wouldnt be anle to travel to a destination due to money and other logistics. So for us it was more important to have them with us rather than save some money. It really comes down to what is best for the two of you and your desires!

View quoted message Hmmm well if a lot of people will be missing out anyways I would definitely consider it!

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A lot of our elderly guests are spread out all over the place and aren't fit to really even be travelling in cars for long distance, let alone fly, due to health issues. So a lot of people will really be missing out no matter where we choose to have it, which is super disappointing

Mountains is the other option we have! We have a venue kind of picked for both options, now it's just a matter of finalizing our plan!

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The thought of not having ANY control on the details has me a little worried, but also kind of relieved in a way..... I feel like we are both pretty relaxed people and as long as my dress and all the bridal party are there, that's really all that matters.

I totally understand her frustrations though!

It totally depends on your family/friends and what you want out of your wedding ceremony. I personally would do local just because it is more likely for everyone (that I want there) to be able to come and celebrate with us.

Also my coworker did a destination wedding in Mexico and the resort she did through was great until about 6 months before the wedding when the wedding planner started to take forever to respond. they also had a bunch of issues visualising everything that they wanted to do for the wedding and even when they had photos sent over, if they were changing even the slightest thing they couldn't visualise it that well. She was extra flustered about the whole wedding planning process. She also mentioned that she could only customise so many things to make it feel like her wedding was unique and that bothered her.

So we chose*

We’re very family oriented service we chose local so that it’d be easier for grandparents and the rest of our guests. If we weren’t having such a big county wedding I would have loved to go to the mountains that was my next pick. I don’t think I’d get married out of country personally.

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All completely valid points!

I'm pretty laid back when it comes to stuff like this (it's actually my FH that has been picky about everything! haha) In saying that though, that could change once we get into the real details of planning the big day.

I would stay local as you can be more involved and possibly save yourself some money in various ways.

I personally don't like destination weddings. It costs people a lot of money and they have to take so much more time off work (which they may not necessarily have). As someone who is a type A personality, I also don't like the idea of not being able to physically pick and choose things and relying so heavily on someone to organize my wedding who barely knows me.

As I said, that is just me though.

Thanks ladies! There are so many options to think about! My dad will go anywhere in the world for us, where as the rest of family is a gamble if they will even be there. So it's really only my FH family that we need to worry about, and they are SO supportive with everything we've decided so far.

Basically still at point A haha.... hopefully something works out!

It was never an option for us to have a destination wedding mainly because I'd be fearful of something going wrong (I like to plan all the details myself).

I’m for destination weddings bc they tend to be smaller and intimate.

But you can also get that feeling in BC.

Go with your gut and have fun with the process!

We were considering a destination wedding as well, but in the end we chose a more local wedding, as both myself and my fiance as well as most of our friends are teachers (in different provinces), meaning we either got married somewhere in the Caribbean in the middle of the summer (super hot!) or have it during Christmas break or spring break, which wasn't the same for everyone. In the end, it just made more sense to have people take 1 or 2 days off work, rather than a whole week.

Think about your guests who you really want there, and consider if they would be able to attend the destination wedding or not. If the answer is no, maybe stick more local, or if you are fine with them missing the big day, stick to your destination wedding. Good luck with the decision!

I think deciding factor is really if you want a large wedding or something small and intimate? Generally a destination wedding wont have as many guests, so if you're good with that then you're good!

For me we have a large guest list and we for SURE wanted to have the ceremony in our home church so that's what really made us stay home!

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Eh, its part of the planning. I just think, if you're on the fence, really think about going away. We were the typical cas couple with families that we thought would be cool about, and it turns out weddings really do bring something out in people. If you want the whole big day, stick by your guns. But if any part of you is doing it to make other people happy, I can tell you now, there's no way that will last.

That's a tough one. we looked into destination as I would have really liked it. but FH's dad will NOT get on a plane. and he already couldn't go to his other son's wedding. So it was really important for me to have him there. so we are doing local.

cost can be a factor (depending on how gift giving is out west). where I live, the majority of people put cash in a card, so it helps pay for a wedding. destination, people don't tend to gift as they are paying for a vaca.

my friends thought a destination would be cheaper. but they ended up having more people go than originally planned. so their 5-7K wedding cost almost 15K.

at the end of the day. no matter what you do, you will not make everyone happy. so make a decision both you and FH want.
both options are a blast!

We were in the same situation. I sas getting suite for New-York ans Tokyo as Well as here local in Montreal. We just decided last week (and our date is 25th of August 2018!) to celebrate our wedding here in Montreal. The main reason was we wanted to have our love one with us to share those precious moments. We wanted to create ouur wedding memories that woild be filled with people that we love. But we also know that going for a local wedding will bring much more pressure and time consuming on organisation...but we made an informed decision. To compromise between a destination wedding and the organisation of having our wedding in Montreal we decided to go with a really small wedding with only 40 guesses.

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That makes it so tough...Hopefully his family comes around day-of!

We decided to stay local for family and friends. We knew if we had a destination 90% if our friends and families wouldn't be able to go. So we have decided on a small local wedding. We still have to travel there, we live in BC and everyone is in Ontario. But this way we get to see all out family and friends we haven't seen in a while too.

We chose a local vineyard (in Ontario) and we thought it would make everyone (our families) happy. It did not. We’ve both said in retrospect, we’d have chosen a destination wedding. A lot less choices and a lot less pressure and people show up or they don’t. Honestly, we chose local because my FH has a big family and he thought it would disappoint them if we did a destination wedding. Turns out, they’re just disappointed with every choice we make. And I thought that people only said destination after they’d had the big event. But I haven’t done the big event, and I’m still saying go away for it. That said, I love my venue and I’m excited for it. And I’m honeymooning in Mexico, so I sort of get both.