S2 had both brothers as best men. S3 stood beside him and had the rings during the ceremony and S1 gave the best man speech at the reception. It was perfect.
After being an attendant in many, many weddings with all that entails-$$$$, my niece announced to all her friends and family that she has now retired from the bridesmaid business!
We have several family members who have needed to have a ceremony/reception overseas (from where the groom was from) and a ceremony/reception in another country where the bride was from. Sometimes parents and/or siblings went to other country event.
Many young couples are not having a church wedding, or they may have a church for the ceremony but have not one word of scripture during their event. A few Catholics even have a tiny Catholic church blessing and then have their wedding event outdoors or at a venue. Some will have scripture and somewhat religious ceremony outside or at a non-church venue.
So many young couples put so much effort into âthe dayâ and perhaps not into developing a solid relationship with each other.
Any wedding I have to fly to is a destination wedding. No thanks. Had to think twice about attending our sonâs out-of-state wedding. OK, just kidding on that one. Sort of.
Side note: We finally got a link to all of the wedding photos. Only five (!) with me and DH in them and only two of those with both of us and our son and DIL, and none of them worth ordering/printing, so I guess it didnât matter what I wore. However, there are tons of terrific photos of the bride/groom/bridal party/ceremony, so thatâs something.
Same here. Our wedding (MANY MANY years ago) was in the town we were both living at the time. It was a destination wedding for our entire family. Only friends and co-workers were local. But our families lived 2400 miles apart, so at least our location was a neutral one.
Families are so scattered today, many weddings are likely destination weddings by default. It helps if it is at least in an area with plenty of hotels, easy transportation, and fun to visit.
Personally I think the term âdestination weddingâ means situation where the couple opted to pick somewhere distant / not home town (usually a vacation location). I was annoyed when my Dadâs wife whined about family hoping they could go to a grandsonâs âdestination weddingâ - it was a plane ride from them, but it was groomâs location and hometown for the bride.
Doesnât the groomâs part of the wedding party consist of best men and groomsmen? If his brother is neither yet still in the wedding party, then what is he â an usher??
@Colorado_mom I know the typical or at least original definition of a âdestination weddingâ was typically a vacation location at a resort where everyone came for days of wedding activities. I used the term âdestinationâ in quotes in my first post b/c my daughterâs situation it is like a destination wedding in the sense that basically her entire guest list is from out of town and has to fly in/stay at hotels (although in reality, San Diego is a vacation location for many). So in our situation, we knew all along the location, no matter where she chose, was going to mean not everyone she would have wanted to invite would be able to come. We ended up not even inviting most of our friends/relatives whom we would have invited had the wedding been local to us. My brother canât even attend b/c he cannot fly on a plane that far due to back problems.
I think in this day and age where people marry later and move around the country more due to job transfers, etc, having a traditional hometown wedding, or a wedding that is âlocalâ to the majority of guests is not as likely as it used to be.
Destination wedding to me, means a location chosen that has no connection to the couple, no logistical justification, and requires travel for most everyone.
Same for destination, elavorate bachelor/ette weekends , which I think are just pretty selfish. S1 was best man and had to explain to his BFF that no, they werenât all taking off and flying to the opposite coast, and no, S1 was not picking up the tab âbecause itâs supposed to be a gift from the best manâ.
I get that in this day and age, there will be a significant portion that will need to travel.
In our case, the first wedding is halfway across the country to where our daughter currently lives. The grooms family is local.
The destination wedding is somewhere no one lives and has no connection to the brideâs family. Itâs ok. Weâve never been there. Itâs an all day long trip.
So the brideâs family is traveling to the local to the coupleâs first intimate wedding and traveling to the second destination.
I understand that Iâm in the minority here. That traveling is part of how things work now.
Also my nose is a bit out of shape that my kid isnât willing to travel to her home state for a cousinâs wedding but thinks that her cousins and uncle might spend $1,000s to attend hers.
Very true. I can see the distinct change in one generation of my family, where job transfers took us from NY to CO / sister to TN. And then ou son settled in Boston (wife originally from west coast).
Interestingly the first two destinations I heard of (about 10 years ago) were from couples living in brides hometown. The planning ideas for local wedding were snowballing- getting expensive/stressful. So they opted for a small international event with immediate family. Both were lovely per the photos and stories. One included a party back home (actually two parties - one in brideâs town and another in the groomâs town in another state).
Thatâs how I see the destination wedding. If someone died and wanted to be buried where they lived, that happened to be far from all family, would you call it destination funeral?
Older S is currently on a plane to Vegas for a bachelor party. He hasnât been in enough to complain heavily, but yeah⊠Itâs a lot. And I agree⊠It could be fun if you WANT to and can afford to attend, but shouldnât be mandatory. And nobody should feel badly about piping up and saying they just canât.
If either kid gets married to current GFs (one is definitely likely, the other we are all really hoping on both sides), neither ceremony will be local to us. I would never expect anyone to fly to their wedding except maybe my parents, if their health was still good. Iâd hope my sister/brother would come, but Iâd understand if they couldnât. I guess I just spent most of my life pinching every penny and having to save every hour of vacation time for possible sick kids. No way could we have afforded time off for work or pay for a flight/hotel for a wedding. I view invitations as invitations, not mandatory requests.
I would have to say in my circles anyway that beyond immediate family, MOST could not travel or will not travel to destination weddings. Not the money, not the time or just not the occasion to make that trip a smart move for their family.
It isnât a measure of love or caring or support - itâs personal choices that go beyond the event itself. Great if you can go. Acceptable and understood if you canât!
This shows how much an individual can âstretchâ a locally arranged bachelor or bachelorette party and jumping to a destination location where the tab is expected to be picked up for the bride/groom??? Often they are the ones wanting the destination event! The two that DD2 attended, the bride to be and her other friends from that area selected the destination bachelorette location â and DD2 wanted to attend.
Also, with remote work flexibility, many young people tend to incorporate some of travel days with work time. They want to attend some family functions w/o using much of their days off so they can truly use days off for real vacation.
25 years ago I got familiar with âremote workingâ when I was with my 2 YO daughter to momâs rented condo in FL, and another family there had a dad working remote as a lawyer for months - between computer, phone and fax (back then) he was able to do so.
D1 and her fiance are getting married next year in a small town about 20 minutes east of where they live in San Diego. Fiance is from CT so most of his family and friends will be coming from the east coast. D1 and fiance have traveled to at least 8 weddings of friends out of state. Next week they travel to Massachusetts for fianceâs brotherâs wedding. Then the weekend after they travel to New Hampshire for the wedding of two good friends that now live in San Diego.
D1 and fiance are inviting about 140 to their wedding, but they know they will probably only have around 100 attending and they are fine with that. They chose to travel and go to many weddings of their friends over the past 4 years, but they know that not everyone will be able to come to their wedding. Next year they only have 1 wedding they will have to travel east to attend.
Donât know! He and the brother of the bride are listed in the wedding party as just âBrother ofâŠâ.
I think thatâs a good definition of a destination wedding. I donât object to a destination wedding in principle, but iâm retired and hubbyâs work is flexible. To me, the real issue is being sensitive to the burden in terms of expense and time required for guests to travel. My nephew was married in July in Banff. That âfeltâ like a destination wedding for most of us on the groomâs side because of the expense of the travel and hotel. The hotel was about $350 USD per night not because the hotel was at all fancy but simply due to location and season. But the bride and groom live in Calgary (my nephew is a PhD student at U of Calgary) so for them and their friends it was local. All the aunts, uncles and cousins on my side made the trek and turned it into a mini-vacation and family reunion. Most of the cousins are in their 30âs except my kids who are 22 and 26. We paid for our kidsâ hotel rooms to ease the financial burden on them.
Now, our daughter is getting married in 3 weeks in Philly. All the same aunts, uncles and cousins will show up for this wedding too (knock on wood), but it will be a little bit closer and less costly for most of them. And 3 couples who are close friends of ours (friends of the MOB & FOB) are coming from SoCal and AZ. But we have quite a few people who politely declined due to the travel involved, which we totally understand. D had a small bachelorette party in Charlottesville, VA because the MOH is a PhD student at UVa and the attendees could all get there by car. Groom had his bachelor party in Lexington, KY because his groomsmen were mostly from Ohio.
One of mine had a destination wedding that was a few hours from their home. It was driving distance for all the guests and some family and most of their friends lived close enough to not need lodging. The lodging was mainly house rentals and a few small inns. 30 minutes away was a town with many chain motels. She did her bachelorette party in our hometown. She combined it with her bridal shower so her maid of honor who was in Vet school only had to fly in once. All the girls stayed at my house and my husband and I went and slept at my other daughters house.
Another got married in our city which is where she also lives. It was a Sunday in late October but we felt bad that the hotels were outrageous expensive. This was during Covid so we didnât invite as many guests.
If any of the San Diego destination weddings needs to fill an empty seat, just let me know!
My nephewâs wedding in Saratoga Springs was a true destination wedding; they live in Brooklyn. Brideâs family was Long Island; groomâs parents Chicagoland. The couple specifically wanted to keep brideâs mother from being involved and paid for it themselves. Guests did have to stay overnight to attend all festivities, even though NYC residents could take the train instead of driving. We flew out, as did son from Seattle, as there is no indication niece or son will ever find life partners. So no other family weddings in sight!
Yikesâlate last night, got a text from Sâs fiancĂ©e. Her makeup person for wedding is having bad post party depression. She needs new person or suggested we make appts with sephora or someplace for wedding.
I called a friend whose kiddo was roommates with a guy whose sister is a professional make up artist for stars in Honolulu. Will see if she can help us out.
Having a lot of fun at d/fsilâs shower! Fsil and wedding attendants did all the planning. I am such a lucky mama!