I absolutely despise destination weddings. For the uninitiated, this is when a couple decides to have a wedding at a location that isn’t where the couple lives or where one of the two persons in the couple has a lot of family and friends (like a hometown they moved away from). This is when a couple in say Ohio decides to have their wedding on a beach in Florida a resort in Mexico.
So the expectation is that your guests will each be spending a least a few hundred dollars to attend your wedding. How selfish do you have to be to do one of these? And in the USA among at least middle class folks, this is considered normal and it’s considered kind of a slap in the face if you just don’t go if someone close to you is the one getting married.
US Americans barely have any vacation time or money. And we’re expected to use both (to a place we wouldn’t necessarily choose to go!) just because someone wants to get married there? Fuck that.
Now for a lot of weddings, of course even if you have a normal one where you live, people are gonna have to travel to attend. Not necessarily a big deal except this still puts a sizeable financial obligation on people close to you. I was in this situation for my wedding with a lot of my immediate family and close friends (I moved away from my hometown). But you know what I did? I was emphatic - probably to an annoying degree - that is was totally ok for people to not attend. It wouldn’t have been an issue at all, and it wouldn’t have impacted our relationship one bit. I let people know that just not wanting to come was totally valid. But I don’t know anyone else who has done this.
And yes, I may be salty right now that I have sibling getting married I have to spend a significant amount of money to go, lest I seriously impair our relationship.
Main reason I want one. I don’t give a fuck about my extended family and a destination wedding would prohibit them from coming.
More than anything else, it’s probably just an example of capitalism turning yet another aspect of life into something commercial and monetizable, like how the demand for diamong rings was completely created by marketing
Gender reveal parties are probably the newest iteration of this
they better at least have an open bar
my idiot cousin had a destination wedding. I’ve been to a ton of weddings, most of them low-key and economical because those are the kind of people I choose to associate with. they dollared down in the important shit, like local/fresh ingredients for food and like shuttle service if it wasn’t a walkable venue so people could get shithoused safely.
my family made a big deal that we all had to go to my cousin’s destination wedding and we shared accomodation costs, so it wasn’t bad for us. but it was at a fancy resort and my dipshit cousin went for all the absurd extras. my cousin is not wealthy (enlisted military) and his family are all broke, but he loves toys and showing off. always some big new truck, jet skis, etc etc.
he has got to be buried in the most absurdly high interest debt already and I have no doubt he financed the entire wedding across a couple of credit cards at like 22% APR.
Hope you make the best of it and agreed on all points. The way you did it sounds like the best of both worlds. It’s your wedding you should be able to have it how and where the two of you want, but you also have to accept that that might limit who can or will want to attend.
