Sounds like you had a beautiful wedding ceremony and a magical day. Congratulations. I clearly understand all the points you make and the reasons behind your decision.

Perhaps you might consider having a renewal of your vows before your first anniversary. It could take place at your home or a friend’s place. You could show the pictures of your wedding and tell everyone it was a fabulous day, and the only thing missing was their company.

Of course, you would invite only those you know, truly care about you and your bride. They are likely people you too wished had been there. Therefore, it is clear I am not referring to distant cousins or friends of your parents you have never met.

When our sons get married, there is no doubt that no matter where it is we will be there. Although they know, we hope it will be on familiar ground.

Kindest regards,

I must disagree with your posting. Having recently been married in the Caribbean, I feel I must defend the decision made by both my wife and myself. We chose to have a destination wedding for three reasons: Finances, Distance, and Environment.

Financially having a wedding in Canada will cost in excess of $20,000. This is assuming a ceremony for more than twenty people with all the traditional incidentals. Both my wife and I found it difficult to justify spending the equivalent of a down payment of a house, or the price of a luxury car on a single day. We choose the most economically reasonable choice, a destination wedding. For a fraction of the cost of a traditional North American wedding we travelled with friends and family to the Caribbean and had our dream wedding for $6,000, not including my wife’s dress or our rings. This has allowed us to buy a car and now a new house all within six weeks of being married.

The second justification for a destination wedding is distance. My family live a number of hours from where I live, as does my wife’s family. We compromised and said everyone who wants to attend our wedding will have to travel thus preventing any resentment from any party. This was if anything the most democratic way of handling the situation. Asking friends and family to travel thousands of kilometres to another country was not easy, but we knew that if people could make it to our wedding that would be great, if they couldn’t for any reason that was understood as well. Asking people to spend thousands of dollars is not easy, and we knew that many people would not be able to make it, and harbour no resentment towards them.

As a person who cares about the state of the planet, the environmental concern was there, however logically we made the more environmentally sound choice. The food for the wedding was local, the flowers were not imported or grown industrially and our contribution to the local economy of a developing nation only helps with global trade and the betterment of the people. Also, why would you not want to have the day of your dreams be in paradise? It was our choice and everyone who attended agreed that it was an amazing service.

No gift was expected from the attendees. The fact that they were with us to witness our marriage was a gift enough. Those who were not able to attend were not expected to give a gift either.

My wife and I lived together for over a year prior to joining in matrimony, and wanted to go on vacation together. We thought, why not have our friends and family join us if they can, and while we are on this vacation let us express our love and affection by becoming husband and wife.

To adamantly be against destination weddings, is unreasonable. It is financially smart, environmentally friendly, and democratic. I say having a large fairy book wedding with an attached price tag that is greater than the price of a University education is irresponsible and illogical.

I think that there are two main reasons for destination weddings that you are forgetting.

First is to limit the list of guests. Because of exactly the reasons you listed in your article, fewer people can come so you’ll only have your family and close friends there instead of 400 people who don’t necessarily get along (try split families for example).

Second, I find that more and more people don’t live where they grew up and their future spouse doesn’t either. Instead of fighting over having the wedding in the maritimes where the bride is from, the west coast where the groom is from or Ontario where the couple lives, why not pick a destination wedding? Everyone’s going to have to travel anyways!

There are MANY benefits to a destination wedding.
1. Immediate exclusion of all of those people (i.e. friends of the family that neither the bride nor groom really know) who do not want to spend 1000-2000 to attend a wedding (in my mind the biggest benefit)

2. I HATE it when I have to travel to Toronto from Vancouver to attend a wedding… but do it out of love for friends. I have to take of 2 or 3 days to attend the wedding, and don’t even get a holiday out of it. If I’m going to spend $600 for a flight to Toronto + hotel costs and meals to attend a wedding in Toronto why not make it Cuba, or some other destination where the guests don’t just have to attend a wedding, they can have a vacation (which if they are like me, they would have taken anyways)

3. No, all of the destination weddings that I have been invited to have not accepted gifts. The bride and groom have the same limit as you do on luggage. Don’t bother taking a gift. It is really your presence that makes the occasion, not the ugly fruit bowl.

4. Weddings (local) are impositions on the new couple instead of the guests. If a destination wedding is financially, or time wise, out of the question, don’t go. It’s that simple. The bride and groom understand. A local wedding can run thousands of dollars between venues, photographers, food, liquor etc. etc.

Sorry about the rant… but having been through the planning of my brother’s wedding next week I have sworn that if I get married, I’m eloping or just having a destination wedding.