When Your Destination Isn't Everyone's Dream

Posted on: November 16, 2005

By Margraret Littman
CTW Features

Image courtesy Corbis

When Stacey Udell's sister announced her engagement Udell couldn't have been more excited. She was delighted that her sister was getting married, and the destination wedding to Puerto Rico sounded like a great way for her family to take a relaxing, sun-filled vacation in the dead of winter.

When Udell reminisces on that trip she has the perfect words to describe the weekend: "a horror for me and my family."

Among the factors that contributed to her "nightmare" were:

• a $5,000 tab for just four days in "paradise,"

• 10 hours stuck in New York's LaGuardia airport, waiting out a snowstorm and

• more airport waiting, until to 2:00 a.m. in San Juan, for lost luggage that never arrived.

The list goes on to include a pricey gift shop bill to replace the missing clothes, travel-weary kids, ages 7 and 9, high-priced hotel meals and the fact that much of the guest list couldn't make the trip to celebrate with the happy couple.

"If I wasn't the matron of honor, I don't know if I would have made the trip," she admits.

While the circumstances (and the weather) certainly made Udell's Puerto Rican trip unusually disastrous (a car accident even prevented the band from showing up), her disdain for the destination wedding is not uncommon. The cost, the time commitment and the difficulty of travel can overshadow the actual purpose of the event and even cast a pall on the party. Sure, reality TV and glossy brochures make an exotic destination look like a bride and groom's ticket to a super-special event, but the novelty has worn off for many wedding guests.

It's not that your friends and family want to rain on your parade, it's just that attending a destination wedding can seem like a commitment nearly as large as the one you're making.

While a big at-home wedding can be a weekend of events for family and friends - rehearsal dinner, ceremony, reception and Sunday morning brunch - few require guests to take a vacation day or two from work the way, say, a wedding on a far-flung island can. Even guests who can afford the expense and can swing the days away from the office may not want to spend their precious few vacation days in your warm-weather fantasy, says Ann Saavedra, a Bay Area wedding planner. And, she adds, "There are simply people who can not afford it." In Saavedra's experience, thirtysomethings with disposable income and extra vacation days love the idea of attending a wedding away from home. But parents and grandparents may be slowed by health concerns, and families with young children are daunted both by the idea of leaving the kids at home and by the prospect of taking the whole family across the ocean.

"It is really easy for important people to feel left out of a destination wedding," Saavedra says.

Debbie Swanston and her husband were planning a 200-person wedding in Houston, where the couple lived at the time of their engagement. The more she planned, the more Swanston realized she wasn't creating the intimate celebration she wanted. The couple scaled back the invite list to 35 and decided to tie the knot in Lake Tahoe, instead.

"We weren't sure how people were going to react with the flights and the hotels, but we actually had to not invite people because so many people wanted to come," says Swanston, who is now director of sales at Zephyr Cove Resort and Marina, the property where she was married. She thinks the fact that the couple picked Tahoe rather than Tahiti made the difference; the location was different, but not difficult to reach.

That sort of big picture planning can help a destination wedding go off with out a hitch (see sidebar for more tips). But Saavedra says more couples are deciding there is no place like home when it comes to their weddings.

"One of the things I like to see at the wedding is the camaraderie of the families, and to see the families getting to know each other," Saavedra says. "You need as many people as possible to come together to get that.You can't have that with a destination wedding. Some people will be cut out."

Remember, you still can have those perfect days on the beach thousands of miles from home. That's what honeymoons are for.

If You Must Go

If, despite the logistics and the risks, you and your sweetie are set on a destination wedding, consider these five tips for making the trip more of celebration and less of a burden.

1. Track your flight plan. A wedding on the shores of Lake Tahoe may be as picturesque Lake Como, but the trip will be shorter for everyone (except any Italian guests) and less expensive. More of your guest list will be able to join you.

2. Add it up. Booking an all-inclusive resort helps your guests plan for the total costs of the trip. Look for packages that include use of the pool, tennis courts, whatever is important to your destination, so that your guests don't feel like they're constantly shelling out more dough.

3. Give more. More information, more directions and more options, that is. A good hostess (that's you) makes sure her guests feel comfortable in an unfamiliar destination. Details like maps sent ahead of time and lists of recreation activities and babysitters waiting in the hotel room can go along way toward making guests feel relaxed.

4. Look at the calendar. Yes, a beach wedding is more attractive when it's snowing at home. But winter weather can leave guests stranded en route. Think about off-season options to lower both the costs and the likelihood for complications.

5. Leave no guest behind. If you are having an intimate destination wedding, consider a larger reception once you get home, so your friends and family who couldn't make the trip will feel part of your big day.