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Devoted March 2015

Are destination weddings rude?

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Eliza, on December 4, 2013 at 3:42 PM

Two of my good friends just got engaged and set their wedding date two weeks before my (already existing) wedding date. My fiance and I truly love them and would love to attend their wedding. Only problem is: it's in France. If they were having a wedding near me it would be possible to go, but we can't go to France two weeks before our wedding! Plus, it's not like they have family there... they just picked it out of the blue because they want to visit. And they are giving us a hard time already saying they hope we can come. What do you think? Is it unreasonable of us to skip it?

edit: I was going to write a long response but this article pretty much articulates my thoughts exactly: http://weddings.gatheringguide.com/ac/wedding-etiquette/how-rude-are-destination-weddings (which are, there are ways to make it not rude... but in general asking your guests to do that is very inconsiderate!)

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Just Said Yes October 2021
Caroline · on January 23, 2019 at 4:25 PM
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Eloping is completely different, no one invites a large group of friends and family to their elopement. For a DW friends and family are invited and immediate family is somewhat expected to come.
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Master August 2014
SunshineJenn · on January 23, 2019 at 5:10 PM
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Holy 6-year-old thread, Batman.
Eloping is only different if you are not inviting friends and family, but many people do. Which makes it not eloping, but semantics at that point.
I'm a photographer on the fringe of the wedding industry, and I can tell you without a doubt that plenty of people invite guests to their "elopement." It's also why many courthouses have a cap on how many guests can be in attendance.
Brides who EXPECT someone to attend their destination wedding are not managing their expectations correctly. My husband and I had 15 guests at ours, my mom was not among them, and most of the rest of our family did not attend. Totally fine with us.
What I meant by my quoted comment is that people (read: guests) think of DWs as selfish because they want to attend and feel like they cannot, which is exactly the same feeling they would have if the same couple eloped.
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Super March 2019
Alejandra · on January 23, 2019 at 7:50 PM
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I don't think that they are rude I just think that if thats your choice then you can't be mad when people decline, unless you're having a very low key family only DW. My sisters really good friend decided to have her wedding in Hawaii about 2 weeks before mine. My sister was all in for it until she saw that flight alone would cost her about $1,000 round-trip, The cheapest hotel option was about $800 for the 2 days she'd be there and well whatever other costs would come up. To top it off her bach party is turning out to be an almost $1,000 per night Vegas trip for 4 days. My sister sadly declined to both as our weddings are just too close for comfort and she just would not spend that much money on a Vegas weekend. She has the $$ but was not willing to spend that much and they are only having 4 guests because of this and the 4 girls going will divide the brides portion.
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