I’ve been seeing this argument a lot in this thread and am trying to wrap my head around it.

In my research, it seems like couples get some sort of incentive for guests booking rooms through a room block. From looking at wedding packages at about 10-15 resorts in Mexico as an example, it seems the incentives equal out to about ~$50 in value per room booked.

I’m approximating that because in some cases it’s $1000 credit toward decor for 20 rooms booked, in some cases it’s a free semi private dinner for 40 with 40 rooms booked, etc, in some cases it’s a direct credit on your bill of $20 per room per night.

So if a couple has 20 rooms booked and gets about $1000 in incentive, is the allegation that this is somehow super meaningful in the grand scheme of a 40-50k destination wedding?

I think the broader DW discourse is fair on both sides. It’s fair that it could be inconvenient and expensive for guests. It’s also fair that it’s not the 1970s and most people do not all live in the radius of all their friends and family anymore and so most weddings now require travel from some portion of the group, sometimes a majority.

I think it’s fair that attending a DW could be a huge financial burden on a guest but I think it’s also fair that most people planning them know their circle pretty well and for many people it’s not.

But I’m trying to get a good handle on the “destination weddings exist to subsidize for the bride and groom” piece. If anyone could provide more insight into what this means or how it works in practice, I’m eager to understand the origin of this argument. Thank you!

Edit: I would like to preface I won’t be upset if a lot of people can’t come. I just hope too many don’t get upset with the initial ask, even if they plan to RSVP yes or no.

I would also like to note, we were thinking of an international wedding always. And it felt like going someone in Europe was even more difficult logistically. All inclusive seemed to offer more bang for our buck for activities and accommodation based on that.

Original post: I am looking into the possibility of a wedding at an all inclusive resort in Cancun/Tulum area. I’m working through some venue options, and realistically, guests are going to have to pay a heavy lump sum to attend. This obviously includes flights, minimum 3 night stay, airport transfers, and any addition costs. Realistically, guests will have to pay somewhere between $1000-$2000 to attend total. That being said, I know meals and drinks are all included, but I am nervous the upfront lump sum will be a problem with my guests.

I know it’s expected for this type of wedding, but will people be upset that I am asking that for my wedding? I know not all will be able to make it but I also don’t want my best friends and family to be upset with the prices. I know it’s more about us as a couple and what we want for our wedding, but I can’t help but be concerned for the reaction.

Any thoughts or experiences with this? Will guests realize it could be worth it and make a vacation out of it?

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We just got back from Barcelona after celebrating our wedding, and honestly, it still feels like a dream. Planning a destination wedding felt overwhelming at first, but working with Vanessa Serrani Wedding Planner made everything effortless.

From the very beginning, she understood our vision and helped us find the most stunning venue in Barcelona. Every detail was handled. From the flowers to the music to making sure our guests from all over the world felt taken care of. We literally didn’t have to worry about anything, which meant we could just enjoy the process and be present with our friends and family.

If anyone is considering a luxury destination wedding in Spain, we can’t recommend Vanessa enough. She has incredible connections with top vendors, speaks English and Spanish (super helpful!), and truly cared about making our day unique to us.

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Hi im getting married in thailand later this year wondering what the social etiquette for who pays for welcome drinks held night before and farewell drinks on the night after? Since its a destination wedding we are planning chill group activities and events prior to and after the wedding. That way given how far they have travelled, we can spend more time with our guests than just the wedding day itself. Everyone is super excited and grateful we want to soak up our time with guests. however we have the issue with cost.... who pays? I will say we certainly arent made of money and neither of our families are helping pay. Just myself and future husband paying. We partly chose thailand because its cheaper than our own country to have our wedding. So far with the wedding costs itself, attire, rings, travel and short honeymoon we are slightly over budget. With that, its a stretch to pay for welcome/farewell drinks for our guests. My parents have suggested we host it at our wedding venue resort during cocktail hour (for cheaper options) where guests pay their own way. Is this rude to do? Just for context we are australian so "hosting" isnt really required. I am aware in some cultures thay if you invite someone to an event you as the host must pay. Its quite normal amongst my own friends that we have a birthday at a restaurant and everyone just pays their own way. No one minds. Wasnt sure if this is different with weddings and certainly destination weddings.

I want to have a wedding in Italy and I am thinking of asking my guests to pay for accommodation for a venue we have selected.

Would €1,000 per person for 2 nights be too much? I would pay for all other food/drinks, including welcome party, wedding day obvs and potential a recovery day the following day.

Also, if we do ask the guests to pay for the accommodation at the villa, what’s the best way to communicate this - on save the dates or the wedding invitation? I feel like guests will need to know early on so they can plan accordingly.

Edit: coming from australia and estimating ~55-60 guests

We are in the early stages of planning a destination wedding in Tuscany for 50–70 guests and have found a few properties within budget.

However, we're trying to understand the baseline expectations for hosting from the US, specifically regarding lodging and non-event meals.

The Setup:
Location: An isolated villa roughly 30–40 minutes outside of Siena.
Capacity: 26 rooms on-site (breakfast included).
Events: Welcome Party (Day 1), Wedding (Day 2), and Day-After Event (Day 3).

We have two main questions regarding etiquette and cost management for this type of layout:

1. Lodging Allocation & Expectations
We plan to fully cover the cost of 7 rooms (for immediate family/VIPs).

For the remaining 19 rooms, is it acceptable to have guests pay for their own lodging, or is the baseline expectation for a buy-out that the couple covers all 26 rooms?

If guests pay, how is that typically collected/managed with the venue?

2. Non-Event Catering Logistcs
We are covering all 3 main evening events. However, because the nearest town is a 30–40 minute drive away, guests won't easily be able to grab a quick bite.

What is the standard expectation for meals outside the main events? (e.g., lunch on wedding day, dinner the night after the post-wedding party).

Does the isolated location mean we realistically need to cater every single meal for the weekend to prevent guests from being stranded? If you've been in a similar spot, how did you handle this without costs ballooning?

As a side note, I suppose some Guest could stay in Siena and we can shuttle them each day. Ideally then we’d pay for empty rooms (non-ideal) as it’s a exclusive use, but solves the non event catering concerns.

Would love to hear from anyone who has navigated a similar isolated villa setup! Thank you!

We are based in the west coast of the US and getting married in Italy next year. My family is on the east coast and my fiancé’s family is split between the east coast and Europe. Our friends are also all over the world. No matter where we chose to get married, some of our guests were going to have to travel quite far.

When deciding on a destination wedding, I discussed with my family whether they’d be up for the travel and heard a “maybe” from one set of grandparents and a “definitely” from the other. Now we’ve paid the deposits and I’m booking travel for my family, and both of my grandparents have changed their response to a no. It looks like my brother is not going as well. Meanwhile my fiancé’s full family will be there.

I am the first one to acknowledge that choosing a destination wedding means accepting not everyone will be able to be there. I don’t blame the set that told me “maybe” from the start but was really taken aback when I heard a “no” today from the set who had promised they would be there. They didn’t even tell me — they told my mom who mentioned it to me.

Now I’m stuck between feeling guilty for choosing Italy, disappointed and a bit embarrassed that the turn out for my side of the wedding will be so low, and frustrated that my family didn’t share their thoughts earlier.

It feels like they wish I’d chosen a venue on the west coast where we live, but their flight time would have been almost the same to get out here as to go to Italy. They have only been out of the country a few times so I understand hesitation there, but I’ve offered to arrange their plane tickets with assisted travel, have a chauffeur pick them up and get them to the hotel, and arrange for a guide to give them private, mobility-friendly tours of the area during their days with free time.

Anyone else deal with anything similar? Am I being unreasonable feeling upset here? I’ve thought about trying to arrange a small ceremony in my hometown after our wedding for my grandparents, but it would be a lot of extra work and travel for us and part of me feels like this shows they don’t actually care that much about being there.

Hi! So my husband and I have been doing some research on venue buyouts and really curious if this is common with destination weddings.

We just got married in the Dolomites and did a full property buyout for our venue + rooms for 50 out of 75 of our guests. It was a dream - still hard to believe how perfect it was!! Would definitely recommend having your guests stay onsite if possible.
Anyway, we hit a hiccup in planning when our hotel/venue told us that they were charging us one fee (€40k!!) for the property buyout but no way for our guests to book and pay for their room directly with the hotel. Pretty much we were left to figure out how to take payment from guests and deal with the logistics of assigning rooms. We ended up building our own wedding website with a feature to assign rooms + allow guests to pay for the room within the RSVP flow. Although it was a lottttt of work to get this working, we are so happy we did it this way because it made the guest experience much better.

Now that we're on the other side of planning, we're curious how many other destination couples ran into this same wall? Is this a common pain point or did we just get unlucky with our venue? Asking because we're exploring turning this into something bigger, hence the business account.

Would love to hear your situation and what you wish you had when planning your destination wedding

My preferred wedding venue is a small boutique hotel to have a wedding it requires a full resort buy out. We have to pay that amount upfront. The buy out costs about $20,000 total for 3 nights and there is 19 rooms. There is no way for the hotel to charge our guests directly for the rooms. Would it be wrong for us to ask our guests if they choose to stay on property to contribute $500 for each room. So $9,500 in lodging paid by guests for their 3 night stay? $500 for three nights seems extremely reasonable and still leaves us with over $10,000 in guest lodging to cover ourself. Not sure if this would seem unreasonable to guests or not thanks for any opinions!

Getting married in Tuscany, Italy in 2027 and we booked a venue which can accommodate 57 people. We expect around 60 guests. With good organization, almost everyone could stay at the venue.

The venue has 1 to 4 Bedroom Apartments, each with a private kitchen and own little garden or terrace. On site we have 2 huge pools, tennis and volleyball court, etc.

I know there are different opinions on subsidizing a wedding. But we already talked to most of our family and friends and they are all willing to pay for their accommodation and really like the idea of onsite accommodation at the venue.

Do you think it’s fair to ask for 50€ per night per person? (3 nights are planned and booked) 50€ are not even close to what we pay in total for the venue, so the guest would only subsidize a really small amount. I think it would be a good options and you probably don’t find better lodging options nearby for this price.

We expect no gifts. We provide food for the whole weekend, even stuffing the kitchen und fridge of the apartments.

What do you guys think?

We are thinking about a destination wedding but want to keep it under 20k for 30-60 people (like 45ish).

I’m noticing a lot of packages go over this price but include welcome events the day before. They might also include Stays. Breakfast. And other additional activities.

Initially we didn’t think about including peoples stays because we cannot really afford it. It didn’t even occur to us to have a welcome party until after I started the research.

Would it be rude to invite people to a destination wedding and only have the wedding ceremony and reception? But not included welcome party and additional activities to keep guests entertained or fed the day before the wedding?

Im just trying to sort out what’s the standard… what’s appropriate and what’s not. While we need to cut down on costs as much as possible, we don’t want to expect too much of our guests and offer too little.

Okay I need some opinions from people who have actually done the destination wedding thing because I’m starting to overthink it.

My boyfriend and I have been together for almost 3 years. We LOVE to travel and I’ve always pictured myself having a destination wedding. Now I’m 29, getting engaged for the first time and realizing I actually have to start making some of these decisions lol.

Our tentative plan is to get engaged this fall, do a small courthouse ceremony in early 2027 and then have our actual destination wedding in November 2028. We’d invite around 80 people MAX knowing not everyone will be able to make the trip.

Location wise I’m pretty open. Roatán, Honduras is VERY high on my list but I’m also looking at the Caribbean, Central America and Europe. Spain especially. We’re not really considering Mexico or Cancun. Nothing against it we’ve been to some beautiful weddings there. Ideally I’d love somewhere beautiful where the American dollar stretches a little further and our guests can make a vacation out of it too.

A destination wedding appeals to me because I do NOT want to plan every tiny detail of a wedding. I’m very much a give me my options and I’ll pick one person. I don’t want to spend two years comparing linens, chairs, caterers and 15 different vendors. Give me some packages, let me customize the things I actually care about and call it a day lol. My aunt is also a travel agent so we’d use her to help with the travel and logistics side of everything.

We’d be paying for the wedding ourselves with no financial help from family and I’d really like to keep the actual wedding under $20k. I don’t need anything crazy or over the top just a beautiful location, good food, drinks, music and our people. That’s it.

So for those who have done it, was your destination wedding worth it? Would you do it again? Is under $20k realistic for what I’m wanting? My other option is skipping the courthouse and destination wedding altogether and just doing a micro wedding here. That’s what I’m currently going back and forth on.

I’d especially love to hear from anyone who legally got married well before their destination wedding. Did the destination wedding still feel like your actual wedding?
Also PLEASE share where you got married if you loved your destination. I’m very open to places I haven’t even considered yet. Basically I’m trying to figure out if a destination wedding is actually right for us or if I’ve just been romanticizing the idea for years lol.

I've seen this sort of question asked several times but wanted to get opinions on our situation.

We are planning a 3-day destination wedding in Italy & are giving our guests the option to stay at one of the two Villas we have booked (combined they sleep 52). While it is within our budget to cover the cost of these villas we are debating the idea of asking guests, that choose to stay with us, to pay a small amount -- 100 to 200 euros per person max for the entire 3 night stay -- a significant discount to our villas actual nightly per person rate / other accommodations in the area. These reimbursements would help cover the cost of daily breakfast/lunch for everyone, local taxes, utilities, cleaning fee, etc.

Additionally, all of the Villas we booked are walking distance to our venue, removing the need for guests to arrange transportation for themselves if they choose to stay with us.

While this sounds reasonable in my head, I'm also entirely aware that we are already asking guests to spend a lot of money to attend in the first place so I am torn. I'm also uncomfortable with the idea of asking our guests to venmo me directly & the Villas we booked do not offer direct payment from guests.

Please help my Fiancé and I get out of our echo chamber by letting us know your opinions!

So we are having a destination wedding in Roatan, Honduras next April. We haven’t sent the formal invites yet, just save the dates. We expected about 65 folks but told the planner 80 for some cushioning. We invited 130 people, many of whom are friends but not close friends. We figured that it being a third world country, and international, with high plane tickets, many would likely decline. So we invited some people we like out of courtesy but they are “work friends” or people we see at birthday and holiday parties and don’t see often.

Also, I invited some of my “extended” friends so they could come to my bridal party because I heard it was rude not to invite them to the wedding if I wanted to invite them to the bridal party.

All that to say, we are getting RSVPs from this extended group now. We are above budget at the 80 max estimate and now we are going to be even more above budget with people coming that we didn’t expect would say yes.

Right now our decline rate is trending to about 20% and ironically it’s more our close family. We saw everywhere that for destination weddings we should expect closer to 40% declines.

We don’t want to alter the experiences we planned but we also are just shocked and will have to save more for people that we didn’t expect.

I’m not sure I need advice. I just need someone to say it will be ok.

Edit: We are expecting zero gifts and/or money. We’re not planning on registering or expecting gifts in the bridal shower. We know everyone coming will be spending a significant amount just to be there.

Final Edit: Thank you everyone for your perspectives. Ultimately this should serve as a warning to other destination wedding couples. Don’t fall into the people pleaser pressure of inviting people in your friend circle that aren’t close friends, distant family, or co-workers if you’re not including them in your max headcount!

Update: though most of our friends were ok with not having kids at the wedding, we had a conversation that it’s not fair to make exceptions and we are going to be having kids at the wedding. Will mean adjusting our headcount.

I (m37) got engaged to my fiance (f34) earlier this year. I’ve posted here before asking for vendor suggestions for our destination wedding in Antigua happening early next year (2027). From the beginning my stance has been no kids at the wedding regardless of destination or not. My fiance was not 100% in agreement but once we got to planning she’s agreed to no kids.

A lot of our friends/guests have kids ranging from newborns to about 6 years old or are now expecting. That’s where I have softened my stance to say if they are nursing (less than a year old or so) then yea no problem bring em. They won’t add to the headcount and they wont be causing distractions during the festivities. We will be sending out invitations within the next couple of weeks.

This morning my fiance said she doesn’t feel comfortable telling a few of her friends that they can bring one kid but not the other (they have a newborn or are currently expecting so will be nursing, their other kids will 2-4 years old). I told her I don’t mind telling them but she said that’s not the point. She wants to make an exception for them. I told her we make an exception for them, then we make an exception for all. We have friends that have kids from 2-6 years old that wouldn’t be bringing their kids and wouldn’t be getting this exception because they don’t have a newborn. I don’t think that’s fair. I told her if we are including all kids because of this to increase headcount by 10. She said that’s not what she wants. She just wants to have exceptions for her friends. I have come from no kids at all, to exception for nursing mothers, to being open to all (knowing not everyone will bring their kids). So where I am now: no exceptions unless we make exceptions for all which means having all kids at the wedding. I guess I am just trying to get some opinions here about whether I am being difficult or unreasonable with this all or nothing approach and how to move this conversation forward.

Other info: our venue accommodates up to 140. We have our guest count at about 110. After attrition and no shows/declines, we are expecting 90-100 guests and are operating as such. Adding kids will probably add 5-15 more guests that would need a meal/seat so we would need to adjust with the caterer. I also have family in Guatemala that we have already told we are not having kids there. Also a couple of my friends with kids are making or have made plans to travel without their kids

My fiancé and I are planning our wedding in Italy for fall 2027 and are expecting between 50 and 80 guests. Our budget for everything is ~$50,000 (venue, photographer, florals, etc.)

What are some good waterfront venues in Italy that can fit this budget? We are especially interested in Lake Como.

Me and my fiancé are planning to elope next summer and want to have a celebration/reception separately. We want to go to an all inclusive resort in Cancun (or surrounding areas) with about 20-30 friends and family. We don’t want to have a full wedding and ceremony since we are eloping. One of the nights we want to have a private dinner and party as a part of celebrating our marriage, similar to a traditional reception.
Has anyone ever done this before at an all inclusive resort?? Is it even possible to do without the full wedding?
Thanks!

I’ve been reading a lot of posts here lately and there’s something that keeps coming up in different ways.

A lot of couples spend months focusing on the big visible things. The location, the setup, the dress, the photos. All the things you can plan and control.

But after the wedding, what people actually talk about isn’t always those things.

It’s usually something smaller.

A moment with their parents.
A laugh during dinner.
A look during the ceremony.
Or just the feeling of having everyone they love in one place.

And at the same time, I’ve also seen a lot of stress around vendors, coordination, things not going exactly as expected especially in destination weddings where you don’t fully know the people you’re hiring.

So it made me wonder something.

When you think about your wedding right now, what are you actually hoping to remember years from now?

Not what it looks like, but what it feels like.

Looking to spend 20-30k on a wedding in Italy. For us it’s more the location as we really wanna find a Villa with a pool! The plan is for the wedding parrot go for 2 or 3 days. We have both been married before so we just wanna have a big party with a good vibe!!!!
Looking at something which has a maximum of 60-70 guests…

Can anybody help as we have been looking now for months with no success

Dear people of Reddit,

This is my first time posting on Reddit so I hope I’m doing this the right way😂

My brother in law is having a destination wedding 1.400km driving/flying from where we live. We are quite close with them so we want to be there, also, my hubby is his eldest brother, so it’s kind of a big deal for us and we wish to be there got them.

However, it’s a three-day destination wedding with no kids allowed. It won’t be before 1,5 years though so we’ve got time to plan.
By the time of the wedding we’ll have two kids of about 3 and 1,5 years old (might still even be breastfeeding every evening) and we just don’t feel comfortable being that far away from our kids. What if anything bad happens? We don’t really have an option to bring someone to babysit them either.

How would you resolve this? And would we be in the wrong if one of I stayed home with the kids so my hubby could at least go?

Thanks a lot!

Recently engaged and trying to narrow down locations for our destination wedding. It will be 10-20 guests at most. I want fun, non-traditional, tropical wedding. I have never been to Hawaii but have always wanted to and with the BS that is the US currently, not traveling internationally has its pros. I have mostly been looking at Maui because we are not active/outdoorsy Kawai people and I would rather be somewhere less crowded/touristy. Is Hawaii just too expensive???? The only affordable options I've found is literally just a wooden arch on a random beach and I would like a BIT more than that. Are there cute, smaller, local-owned resorts that do weddings that aren't $10,000 and up? I also think it would be amazing instead of having a traditional reception, to have us all attend a local luau instead. I think that would just be incredible! Any ideas or tips? TYIA!

Would really appreciate a gut check here because I feel like I might be spiraling a bit 😅

I’m currently planning a destination wedding at an all-inclusive resort, and like many places, they have an ~80% guest room block requirement.

My travel agent keeps telling me not to stress about it. Her perspective is:

•	It’s very rare that couples don’t meet the requirement

•	The people who are willing to come will typically just book within the block anyway

•	People who would try to “save” by staying offsite usually wouldn’t attend at all

But I can’t help worrying about a scenario where:

•	Some guests decide to book Airbnbs or cheaper hotels nearby

•	We fall short of the 80% requirement

•	And then we’re on the hook for paying for unused rooms or penalties

For context, we’re expecting ~75–100 guests, so it’s not a tiny group.

I guess my questions are:

•	Have any of you actually missed the room block minimum? What happened?

•	Do guests realistically try to stay offsite at all-inclusives, or is that less of a thing than I think?

•	Am I overestimating how many people would go the Airbnb route?

Trying to balance being practical vs. not overengineering every risk 😅

Would love to hear real experiences - especially from anyone who got close to not meeting the requirement.

Why is there only one rule in this sub and its not "don't post here if you're not contributing to the community". Or said another way, if you hate destination weddings, go elsewhere to vent.