Destination Wedding?

[rockundergirl]

Has anyone had one, been involved with planning one? I have some questions and want over all opinions.
What was the total cost for the bride and groom, what does that include?
What is expected of the bride and groom as far as included stuff for guests?
Let me know if you have any info, I'm just wondering... its not like my boyfriend is hinting about asking me or anything or that I'm super excited or anything like that...

 

[mjkacmom]

My sister had one at Beaches. It's an all inclusive, although she did have to pay for the wedding dinner - we had our own room. The guests paid for everything else. I did spend a fortune, because I wanted a 1 bedroom suite, so the kids (2 and 4) could have their own space to nap. Now that we have 5 kids, I have no problem squeezing us into one little room!

 

[jboysen]

Does Vegas count? We had 31 guests that came with. Our guests paid their way there and we had a dinner for everyone with a 2 hour open bar after the ceremony. We provided the transportation to and from the ceremony and the dinner was at the next resort over. Total cost for ceremony, transportation, dinner and open bar was around $3500. We went over a weekend and for 3 nights the cost for flight and hotel was $600 per couple. We stayed downtown.

 

[bonoriffic]

My sister-in-law got married in Aruba. The families were split between Boston and Chicago so they went elsewhere. The overall cost was probably equivalent to a large wedding in either of those cities, so there wasn't much savings.

The bride and groom paid for a dinner the night before and an activity 2 days before. It was a party bus, drinking tour type thing. They got everyone a little cooler bag with their names on it and sunscreen in our hotel "welcome" bag. They had over 60 people at the wedding, and for destination weddings that is considered quite large.

 

[4Seasons]

Yes I do this for a living.
It can be as simple or as extravagant as the bride and groom want.
I generally deal with all-inclusive resorts (and specialize in Sandals and
Beaches properties) but the costs will vary depending on property, time of year, options chosen, etc.
It's far from cut and dry, there are so many variables.

 

[msmayor]

We attended a wedding in Vegas for good friends/neighbors. They had about 31 guests total...16 of us were all neighbors. I can say that it was the greatest wedding we ever went to!

Now in this case the bride and groom (who married after being together 18 years) both had very good-paying jobs and spent more than most probably would on a destination wedding.

All guests paid their travel and hotel costs. The bride and groom did provide us with good information to get discounts though. The wedding was at the Paris hotel but some guests (us included) stayed at the less-expensive Bally's which is connected to Paris.

We arrived on a Thursday; the wedding was on Saturday. Most stayed through Monday.

The bride and groom arranged for a golf outing on Friday for those that wanted to play (guests paid...but a discount because there were at least 12 who played). That evening they hosted an open-bar cocktail party with heavy hors' deuvres in their suite...as part of the wedding package, they had a two-bedroom suite at Bally's which had a bar area, dining room and large living room space. It would be where the reception after the wedding was held as well. They gave each guest a nice goodie bag with items like water, snacks, aspirin (for the hangover!) and some beautiful frames.

Saturday guests were on their own until the wedding at 4pm at Paris chapel. Then we all gathered at the suite again for a 4-hour open bar reception that included nice finger-food snacks and wedding cake. All unlimited. It was fantastic!!

The couple arranged for a keyboard player to provide music, but in the final hour of the reception they surprised us all with an Elvis impersonator that was awesome!

On Sunday, "hangover day", they rented one of the cabanas at the Paris pool for all of us to use, and it was really great hanging out "the day after" all together. The guys were able to watch a baseball game on the flatscreen in the cabana, we had a cabana attendant who stopped by often for drink orders (we all paid for our own drinks/food). Mid-afternoon, they wheeled what was left of the wedding cake out for all of us to snack on.

The happy couple did not expect a single gift from any of us; they let us know that our presence made their day and they knew that we had all sacrificed both $$ and vacation time to be with them...they felt that was more than enough "gift" for them

 

[LMulligan]

Hello,

Another Vegas bride here

Our ceremony was in The Chapel at Mandalay Bay. We paid about $5K for a 20 minute ceremony including a minister, the flowers (bridal and maid of honor bouquets, coursages for the moms, and boutennieres for the guys), a piano player, a DVD, and time with a professional photographer / up-graded photo package (including two professional 5 x 7 albums, one 8 x 10 album, three portraits, and the rights to our photos). Our package also included extras like champagne flutes, a garter, dinner for two at Fleur de Lys, a limo ride to the courthouse to get the wedding license and one night in a suite. I think our package was called Platinum Sky.

We had about 25 guests who paid their own travel cost and my parents treated everyone to lunch at the Border Grille (private room, luncheon menu, open bar, and wedding cake from the Chocolate Swan). Lunch was around $1,200 with tax and tip.

Hope this helps!

Lisa

 

[PaulaSue]

Learn something new every day. I thought the B and G would be paying for hotel rooms for the guests at the very least.

 

[Desnik]

We had a destination vow renewal at Disney world! We never had a big wedding so we had the wedding we never had and always wanted for our vow renewal. We had 50 guests, family and friends. Everyone paid their own way. Disney did offer our guests discounts on the resorts and tickets. Some stayed for a week, some for 3 days. Most made it their family vacation. Honestly when we were planning it we didn't think anyone other than our parents and siblings would come. Once word spread throughout the family everyone wanted to join us! No one ever expected us to pay for anything for them.

The cost was $30,000. This was for our room for the week, airfare for us & our 2 kids, attire, ceremony, cocktail hour/reception, floral, photography, videography, wedding planner, food, drinks, DJ, Mickey Mouse, silhouette artist, transportation, park passes for our kids. Basically all normal wedding costs.

From what I know about destinations weddings, most hotels involved offer some sort of discount for your guests. You can get group rates on some airlines too.

 

[erin.w]

We are in the midst of planning our Disney wedding for 2011. I have a number in mind, but we'll see as things go along.

 

[rockundergirl]

Learn something new every day. I thought the B and G would be paying for hotel rooms for the guests at the very least.

I think its like how if your coming from out of town and get a hotel room for someone who is getting married at home, they don't pay for you. But I'm not sure.

 

[bumbershoot]

We didn't have a wedding at a "vacation destination", just at a fave place in Oregon, but no one invited actually lived there (well, 2 people came from Eugene, but that was still a few hours drive from where we were).

We had it there b/c there was no place special enough to us in WA, there's no sales tax in OR (so that's an automatic 9+% savings), and because every last one of my relatives would have to travel, and we figured it was just fair if DH's relatives did, too. His relatives could drive just 3 hours, however...mine had to fly or drive for a day or so at least.

We never felt the need to pay for hotels; if we'd had the wedding where we were living, more than half of the guests would have been paying for hotels anyway. We wanted to have some sort of event, but just couldn't afford it. I think people understood that. We didn't even do welcome baskets b/c that would have been for everyone, and that was just impossible. We did choose a hotel that was a good value, with free hot buffet breakfast, though!

Now if you're having a wedding in an overseas destination that's going to be mega-bucks, and only a few people will actually be coming...I would definitely make sure there was an event or two that you shelled out for, or nice welcome baskets, etc.

 

[Lex87]

This is something I'm looking at too!!!

My BF and I have been looking at a destination wedding for awhile and I'm going to lurk a bit on this discussion as there's some great ideas here.

($30,000?! Even with the discounts? That's a really expensive wedding but I bet you had the time of your lives?)

 

[Eeyore's Wife]

Well,

One of my husband's cousins did a destination wedding and invited NO ONE, so we just sent a nice gift and had no other costs. She is more than a bit shy and just not a big event person. They got married on the beach and had two retirees who were on the beach as witnesses. They are happily married and have three great kids. So, that seemed to work well for them.

I had a cousin who married in Vegas. They were in the middle of planning a huge wedding when her Nana was diagnosed with Pancreatic cancer and was not given long to live. So, my cousin sent us all an e-mail and asked if it was o.k. if they moved the wedding up to the following weekend in Vegas. I don't know how they did it, but they had a beautiful wedding put together with a week's notice. It wasn't quite as big as they had planned, but her Nana was able to be there. She passed just four weeks later, and it meant so much to everyone that she was able to see her only granddaughter happily married.

I know they spent about $15,000 on everything. About $5,000 less than they had been planning.

Now, I am helping a friend plan a wedding in Orlando. http://www.orlandoweddinglocations.com/packages.htm

She is doing a Leu Gardens wedding. The prices are all amazingly reasonable, especially since she really wanted a Disney wedding, but the prices there were outside of what she can reasonably budget.

The Swan Beach Wedding and Downtown Disney Riverboat weddings were also really nice options.

So, she is getting hitched during historically free dining. The plan is to have the wedding on a Sunday afternoon. They are also planning on getting tickets for Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party so that they can get into the Magic Kingdom in wedding attire and take pictures.

In all, they plan on spending about $4,000 dollars for the entire wedding, a week at Disney World, and transportation. They have budgeted another $1,000 for her dress and his suit.

They are really hoping to get a King room at Pop Century, but that is a request and realize they might get a double.

A little birdie told me that he is planning on booking the bounceback for next year for their first anniversary.

 

[Inigo]

I think its like how if your coming from out of town and get a hotel room for someone who is getting married at home, they don't pay for you. But I'm not sure.

Then I did it wrong when I got married back in 1986. We paid for the dresses and rental tuxes for the wedding party, and paid for the hotel for all the out of town guests.

 

[okeydokey]

Learn something new every day. I thought the B and G would be paying for hotel rooms for the guests at the very least.

And since they don't, I will never attend a destination wedding.

 

[TnTWalter]

they are looking for less than $10k and hopefully less than $5k.

Really hard to do at WDW but possible if you limit the guests. Escape wedding plan 18 limit $4750 for most basic but can add 5 guests for $500. If you want to add a dessert party [to watch wishes or illuminations] add about $1k+tax. There's a whole board dedicated to that.

Anna Maria Island is a BEAUTIFUL little beach town we visited last summer [we've been going to Sarasota for years but only ever spent quick day visits to AMI].

Anyway...you could do a lovely beach wedding at the Sands resort and all expensives would be <$5k for a little brunch or appetizers depending on time of day. We saw several weddings the week we were there. It's a lovely white sand beach.

I know several people who were married in Playa del Carmen MX or Tulum MX but that involves a bit more planning and expensive [airfare] but also affordable.

My niece is probably going to do a destination to a nice lake near our house and a casual barbeque afterwards....so far...we'll see...they're a year off.

Fingers crossed for you.

 

[MickeyMomOfThree]

We didn't have or go to a Destination wedding, but DH was best man in a wedding last year that was about 8 hours away from us. It cost us over $1000 just for the weekend. Then there were other expenses. In hindsight I wish he had declined. I could have taken my whole family on vacation for that plus it was a busy weekend for my DH and I spent a lot of time in the hotel alone wishing we had not spent the money.

Anyway, I would think if you are wanting to do a destination wedding to be sure that the people important to you can afford that expense and if not will you be sad to have certian people not there? If that doesn't apply then by all means have fun, if it does it may be something to think about.

 

[leight]

I got married nearly 6 yrs ago at the Disney Swan. What started out as a simple add-on wedding to our family vacation with our best friends and their boys at Disney became a 30 person wedding. Everyone invited themselves when we said we were going there. I didn't feel guilty not paying for them since no one was invited- I had to change all of my plans to accomodate the guests during my vacation

Because we wanted to keep the costs super low (under 3k total for our family-including my dress & tux rentals!) we switched to the swan hotel. We rented an 8 bedroom executive home offsite thru vrbo- and our friends, both mothers, his dad, his sister and her family and my brother stayed at the house for the week. We split it by adults paying for their beds and guests paid all travel costs. No one had to go to parks they could relax by our own pool and have nearby friends over or go to the beach -which the parents chose to do more often. Everyone pitched in to pay for the big shopping and breakfasts & most dinners were at the house. Dh & I paid for a nice ceremony and a lovely midday large lunch reception (replete with filet mignon, alcohol, etc) for the 26 guests. I stayed at the Swan hotel the nite before the wedding and dh & I shared it the nite after- otherwise we had the largest of the 4 en suite masters at the house. It was a wonderful week and everyone had a great time- those that wanted to go to the same park went- those that didn't stayed back or used one of the 3 rental vans we had for the week. The home had 9 tvs, 3 video consoles, pool, jacuzzi, grill, pool table, fooz ball and air hockey. Plenty to do!

 

[rockundergirl]

Then I did it wrong when I got married back in 1986. We paid for the dresses and rental tuxes for the wedding party, and paid for the hotel for all the out of town guests.

my goodness that must have added like 15 grand to the cost of your wedding! but very generous! Sadly I could never afford that lol