2 day wedding celebration - tips/advice

It sounds nice, but I'm not sure if all of your guests would be open to a two-day celebration. Like you mentioned, this is the norm for Indian and other Asian (and Middle Eastern) cultures with specfic, culturally-significant events each day, but not so much for generic American weddings.


You know your guests best, so think about what they have going on. Is this something they can afford? Would they take off of work/school to attend? Even if it's a destination, would they want 2 days of their trip dedicated to wedding events or would they want to explore on their own? Maybe toss out this idea to some of your VIPs and get a feel for their response. Good luck!

You can definitely plan this wedding celebration however you like, and people can choose to take vacation days and travel for it, or not, depending on their schedules.

But I think this part of your plan sounds very awkward: "Get married at sunset on a Thurs followed by a "champagne hour" with the guests and then a late rehearsal dinner with the wedding party. Then the reception on Friday, the next day, from ~6-10pm."

Inviting everyone to a ceremony on Thursday night and then shooing them away while you treat a select few to dinner (what are you rehearsing at that point?) will cause confusion and possibly some hurt feelings. I think it would make much more sense to have your ceremony and reception back to back on Friday (or Saturday).

As long as you let guests know via save the date that it's 2+ days, people will make the effort to attend if they wish. Multi day destination weddings are not limited to certain cultures only. People have multi-day destination weddings all the time. Go for it!

Hi Chelsea! The way I've seen a lot of couples make a big weekend-long celebration out of their wedding is by adding a large welcome reception the night before the wedding, or by inviting everyone to the rehearsal dinner. If there are free drinks and food being offered the night before then guests will definitely be on board to get to the party started early! And it also still allows those who only have enough time or money to attend the wedding to prioritize and plan accordingly!

After our rehearsal dinner we had a 3 hour welcome reception with free drinks for our guests and had a huge turnout - about 70% of our total guest list!

Sunset sounds like dinner time; if you're hosting an event at dinner time, you need to serve dinner - to all of your guests - immediately following the ceremony.