Ceremony and reception are far

Your fiancé needs to be more considerate of your guests - any wedding that is more than an elopement requires you to think about your guests and not just what you want. A 90 minute drive between venues is a big deal – that literally will add 3 hours to the day because of the time needed to travel to the ceremony space, and then to travel to the reception venue. For any guests who were planning on drinking at the reception, this also complicates things as it means a very expensive cab ride from location to location.

For perspective, I wanted to have our ceremony at a beautiful space that was about a 45 minute drive away. With traffic however, those 45 minutes could (and probably would) turn into a 75-90 minute drive. We chose not to go ahead with that ceremony venue literally because of the fact that no one would want to make the commute.

Unfortunately, your fiance is being completely unreasonable and unrealistic. It isn't fair to your guests to expect them to drive at a minimum an hour from one location to the next especially since they are already traveling across the country. It also isn't fair to you because that means you can't invite people that you are close to because unlike him you are thinking of your guests. He can't have his cake and eat it too. He needs to be willing to compromise and if he isn't willing to than that would be a huge red flag to me because marriage is about making compromises. My advice would be to have the ceremony in NJ close to your reception venue and hire a non-religious officiant. We got married in Pennsylvania and we hired a former mayor to perform our ceremony since my husband isn't religious at all and I'm only moderately.

We personally would decline to attend with an hour to an hour and a half between ceremony and reception. We attended 1 wedding that had a 50 minute distance in between and we agreed to never do that again. It’s a lot of traveling there and back. Not considerate for your out of town guests either.

I agree with PP and you that an hour to an hour and a half between the ceremony and reception is way too far. While we're used to long commutes in NJ (at least I am), driving that far for work every day is one thing, and driving that far for a ceremony is another. Especially, think of it this way: your ceremony will most likely be 15 minutes, 30 tops, so guests will be driving 2-3 hours round trip for a 30 minute ceremony. If the drive is longer than the thing I'm driving for, I'm out. You can get anyone ordained in NJ. We had my husband's uncle perform our ceremony. He got ordained through the Universal Life Church for free and was able to legally wed us in the state of NJ. He didn't include any religious stuff because we didn't want him to, so you can ask a close friend or relative if they would be willing to perform the ceremony.

Our wedding was in one place (ceremony and reception) but it was 45 minutes to 1 hr outside downtown where our out of town guests were staying so we offered and paid for a shuttle bus that held 28 guests, which fit all of our out of town guests. If your husband won’t budge then he needs to offer transportation for people. because honestly 1.5 hours is a long ride if you’re having to drive and might not even be able to drink at the wedding. That was one thing about our wedding everyone thanked us for was free transportation. That way your guests can enjoy themselves. Anything within 30 to 40 minutes I say is ok for guests to drive but when you get into the one hr range, that is far.

I have to agree with all previous posters. Your fiancé needs to realize that asking your guests to drive that far from one location to another is completely unacceptable. Especially for your out of town guests. I really think the only way to make that work is to have party busses drive your guests from one place to the other and serve appetizers and drinks on the transportation.

As Alli said, I would decline a wedding that I had to drive 1.5 hours in between events. Driving 1.5 hours to a venue where the ceremony and reception are being held is completely fine. We would get a hotel and it would be no big deal. But driving that far just to turn around and drive back somewhere else would be out of the question.

Talk to your fiance and let him know he needs to be more flexible. It sounds like you two need to either 1) save up more money to rent a space that works or 2) switch your date that allows you to pick a better venue.

Do a photo shoot at the woods and have your ceremony in the same location as your reception. Aren't most guests driving over an hour just to get to your wedding? Then you're making them drive up to an hour and half to the reception? Not acceptable.


Are you going to sit in a car in your wedding dress and makeup for over an hour and half? You'd have many guests ditching either the ceremony or reception

Can you just have the whole thing in Jersey?

Driving 1-1.5 hours between venues, no good. Driving 1-1.5 hours for ceremony and reception in same place, no big deal.

Yes we can easily do everything in NJ. The venue has literally acres of woods, farm, and artwork. Half of guests (many of mine/all of his/some of my family) will be driving an hour. Some of family (more on his side) plus my sister will be in the 2-4 hours range. 7 kids between them under the age of 10, seems like a nightmare to me. Good chunk of my friends coming from west coast and Europe, and his parents from Florida and his cousins/my brother (both with young kids) from Colorado. We have multiple non religious people qualified to marry us who have offered to do it for free.


It seems really a HUGE hassle but I understand he does have values important to him. It’s a compromise since he only wanted 30-40 people but that wouldn’t include any of my friends who are much more family to be than family (my band I’ve been in for 15 years has 15 members alone, and they have partners and kids. We both definitely want them there). We are doing more like 100 people now. But trying to understand if it’s unreasonable or not with just family. He said for all of his siblings it was hour to hour and a half in between venues. I’ve been to few weddings other than those I’ve worked on so unsure.

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So we are at a bit of a stalemate- he has agreed to do just close family (what he wants, but not what I want- I'm not asking my friends to fly hours to get here then drive everywhere) for ceremony. People are asking me (not him) details and I'm basically having constant anxiety attacks about this, having to defend this thing I don't want that everyone is complaining about and that there are no details about (I told him I really need him to come up with the plan for this part since it was important to him and I've done basically all of the work for the wedding so far. It has been SO hard to talk with him about plans- he is depressed and was unemployed- finally got a new job right before we got engaged and he quit it a month later since it turned out bad on several levels. He thinks we just show up to a park and everyone stands there. I'm like, we have multiple people with pain still from knee replacements, are we gonna have chairs? Do we need a permit- some parks require? Etc details like this) My mom already said that some people won't come at all now and it sounds like at least one person on his side won't either according to his mom who is trying to help, but not really helpful (did you try this place? this other? this other? all places I looked into, can't afford/were booked/closed, and we wouldn't like anyway- too fancy/corporate etc).

I'm trying to get him to see how the running around is a lot: night before drive down to reception venue to set everything up (he now can't understand why we have to do any decorations- I said, do you want to pay 1000s of dollars for a florist/decorator? he says no, why would we need any decorations. Plus I am cooking the food mostly- we have to get that there. Does he want to spend $50/person for food- minimum I could find that included apps and dinner, no tip, though honestly basic- just pasta- and I can't eat bc GF? No? We have to bring it down there). Then next day I have to get up to get my hair/makeup done (he says I don't need and I am beautiful as is- I swear to you I am not doing a big deal, my friend is doing it and it will be nice but basic), then go to the ceremony another 30-40 minutes. Then drive hour and a half down to venue.

He said we could now spend more money to do everything in one place, but I am so exhausted from contacting a billion (okay, 100) venues in the last few months, finding a place that fit the few requirements he was willing to discuss/said was important, really checks off all the boxes. I said fine but I need him to do the legwork, I'm totally spent and also swamped with real life work- and he is upset about this, and has not agreed to this at all. Also I'm trying to get him to understand that it will be not just like, a couple thousand dollars (our budget is looking to be about $5-6k) but seriously more- like $15-20k easily. Neither of us want to spend that sort of money even though we could probably figure it out if we HAD to and we don't want it to be fussy like most of these places would be. I'm very exhausted as it is from working in healthcare all year and we are seriously considering where we are at. The good news is he has agreed to do premarital counseling. We are really reconsidering everything.

I guess part of issue is my fault since we didn't have a total plan for the ceremony when we booked the venue, and since I'm not used to driving (I had to buy a car when I moved in with him last year during the pandemic, I always lived in the city) when I first looked how far it would be it was before things started opening up. In some cases traffic has doubled. I figured the ceremony in the city would be a bit extra and not ideal but manageable, now upon really figuring it out it's way more of a time than I expected.

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What your FH needs to understand is that having less people attend does not lessen the inconvenience of attending a wedding that is far away. The only ‘compromise’ that offers is that less people will be inconvenienced. In addition to this - any wedding that involves guests (that is, anything beyond an elopement) requires you to put your guests needs above your own when it comes to hospitality, and in this case, if your guests are having to travel quite a bit, then yes, there need to be chairs, adequate food and so forth.

Notwithstanding this, you say he is depressed due to his unemployment. I have a feeling that this depression may be clouding his judgment and contributing to some of the grief you are dealing with as to planning your wedding. My FH was in a horrible depression when I met him and having witnessed it first hand I can fully appreciate that his depression may be causing different aspects of his life to suffer – and in this scenario, the lack of understanding, the carelessness etc, it all makes sense. I think in addition to pre-marital counselling, FH needs to see a psychologist if he isn’t already.

All the best and good luck OP!