When we hear the phrase “destination wedding,” our minds immediately flash to tropical settings and beach ceremonies featuring the couple of honor and their guests all standing barefoot in the sand.
While that sounds like an idyllic way to get married to the love of your life, there are often many pitfalls and obstacles involved in planning and executing a destination wedding. Sure, gathering with your closest family and friends in some far off land might sound lovely, but destination weddings often only serve to multiply the stress involved with planning typical nuptials.
A better alternative to traveling outside of the U.S. for your destination wedding is to bring your guests together at a locale that’s much closer to home. At the Fox Hollow, you get all the benefits of a Long Island wedding venue—complete with catering services and more—with the addition of the Inn at Fox Hollow, an on-site boutique hotel. You get all the amenities of a high-end hotel, with the added bonus of being much closer to home than some far-flung land.
Destination weddings vary greatly in size. Some destination weddings involve just the eloping couple, others include a few close friends and family, and others are full blowout affairs with multiple parties over a long wedding weekend. But if you’re still considering taking your nuptials on the road for a destination wedding that takes you away from your hometown and outside of the country, we’ve pulled together some of the more negative aspects of such a venture. Here are the cons to having a destination wedding.
There’s More Red Tape Involved In A Long-Distance Wedding
A destination wedding may be full of hurdles if you do not choose to get married at a resort that specializes in offering wedding services. If you prefer to arrange it on your own, you will have to juggle all those details yourself long distance. If your destination wedding is in a foreign country or even another state, you might run into complications when trying to get a marriage license. You would likely have to hire a coordinator who specializes in destination weddings to help you hurdle these speed bumps—which is yet another expense you’d have to consider in your wedding budget.
The Wedding Venue And Wedding Vendor Guessing Game
Planning a wedding from hundreds or thousands of miles away, there’s just no way for you to be as knowledgeable about the wedding venue and wedding vendors as you’d likely want to be. More often than not, you won't even set foot in your destination location prior to the big day—unless you can afford to do some on-site scouting far in advance of the wedding day. It can be nerve-wracking to make major wedding decisions sight unseen. Same goes for wedding vendors. You’ll need to figure out if your wedding venue has vendor options for you to choose from and even if they do, it might be difficult to gauge just how reliable they are. Talk about nerve wracking!
Some Loved Ones Might Not Be Able To Attend
Couples that hold their wedding in a far-away location inevitably have guests that cannot attend—and many of these family and friends would attend if the wedding was closer to home or at least in their home country. This could be due to the expense, difficulty taking time off of work or the age of a particular guest, like a grandparent. Before you put down the wedding deposit, you’ll need to talk to the family or friends that you feel are truly essential to your wedding experience. If cost is a blocker for some, you might have to consider paying for at least a portion of their airfare. Sure, less guests at the wedding could be a silver lining for some, but there are certain guests whose absence would truly put a damper on the nuptials.
It’s Your Honeymoon ... And Your Family Is There
You got married! What an amazingly beautiful ceremony and the reception was so much fun! The only possible way to cap this off is with a truly romantic adventure where you two newlyweds can inspire even more memorable moments. One problem: Your family and friends are their with you at your honeymoon—this makes romantic moments all the more difficult to come by. You’ll need to get away from loved ones somehow, and insisting on time alone can prove awkward for some couples. Causing friction between you and your family or you and your in-laws is definitely not the way you want to kick off your new happily married life. In order to avoid awkward conversations, you’ll have to plan excursions for your family, friends, and wedding party so that you and your partner can have some time alone—but once again, that’s even more stress piled on an already stressful wedding planning process!
Destination Weddings Can Be Unpredictable
Believe it or not, there are some people in this world that relish the idea of the unknown when it comes to their wedding. Well, that might be fine for a night out, but that is not ideal when it comes to planning a wedding. When you plan such an event far, far away, you simply must have your finger on every single detail, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant. Even some of the more critical elements, like exactly what type of flowers will be used in your bouquets or what your ceremony spot will look like, will be somewhat unknown. You can get some idea from pictures, but until you’re actually there, it’s hard to know what everything will be like when you walk down the aisle.
Make The Wedding Getaway Closer To Home
Exotic locations and tropical destinations for a wedding sound absolutely fantastic in theory, but pulling off such a monumental task requires a lot more planning than a typical wedding. If you still want to feel like you’re getting away for your wedding, considering booking a wedding venue that includes an on-site hotel, like the Fox Hollow. This allows you to keep everyone in one place—which amplifies the party atmosphere—while also avoiding inevitable snags and drawbacks associated with planning a wedding outside of the U.S. Keep your wedding planning at least partially stress free and your wedding budget under control—say bon voyage to the idea of planning a destination wedding!
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