Date Help - Thanksgiving Week Wedding?

Do you have a lot of people travelling from OOT?

If people already have plans to travel for Thanksgiving (whether it's to you or elsewhere) they may not have the time off of work/budget to stay an entire week or to travel twice. Just a thought, anyway.

Weddings right around major holidays are always kind of tricky.

We do multiple weddings every TG weekend (not ON TG).

There is no date that is going to work for everyone, and there's a fine excuse for all of them.

Thank you all!

Rachel - I'm in Tampa too! I really like that way of thinking - I'm so prone to try to accomodate everyone that it's making me crazy trying to find a date to work for them all!

If I were a guest I would prefer before Thanksgiving. I think after is too close to the holidays. Plus I would still be able to come down and back before Thanksgiving and have a whole month before Christmas. If you give people enough time they can plan accordingly. But be prepared for a lot of people to not come and have a lot of excuses. Just try to keep in mind the people that want to be there will be and if not, oh well! Do what works best for you because you will never pick a date that works for every person on you list. As long as you aren't doing it Thanksgiving day weekend you are ok.

Heritage Springs in Trinity! We got together in Trinity and started our story there - and they put together some beautiful weddings

Hi, Allie! I'm getting married the weekend before Thanksgiving this year there were a lot of factors for us to consider, as there's pros and cons to it.

Pros:

1) People in my immediate family tend to take the whole week of Thanksgiving off anyway, so this just added a day.

2) This will sound ridiculous to some, but will make sense to others - in our area, fall weddings can be difficult because of college football schedules. The big rivalry games usually happen Thanksgiving weekend, so the week before didn't have very many important games. My family's team had a bye week (U. of Texas) and my fiance's alma mater had a more insignificant game that week (Alabama).

3) My friends are almost all local, so having it the weekend before really doesn't affect them.

4) It's not a very popular wedding weekend, so there's a chance that vendors will give you discounts. I only had one give me a discount (photographer) but it was pretty significant.

Cons:

1) Travel is much more expensive. Our families are both out of state from us, but within driving distance. However, we do have a few friends spread across the country, and that will definitely present a greater obstacle than if it had not been so close to a holiday weekend.

2) If people wanted to go on a week-long Thanksgiving vacation, that might cut into that time.

I think what it really comes down to is whether you have a significant number of guests who would need to fly for your wedding. If everyone is local or within driving distance, I don't think it's a problem. If people are looking at flights that are double what they normally are, it'll either be a bigger inconvenience to fork over the money or they'll just decline.

Best of luck!

My wedding is in November as well...we went with the beginning of November because the majority of our families and friends are traveling from OOT. I think for you though that having it the weekend before Thanksgiving is fine - especially since you mentioned you would invite them to spend the holiday with you as well - which I think is a nice gesture. PLUS it's Florida and people love to travel there for holidays to get away from the cold! (used to live in Miami and Orlando myself) Go with the venue you want for sure! Because if you don't, I think you will always kind of regret it.

Hi Rebecca - thanks so much! I really appreciate all of that insight! I TOTALLY understand the college football consideration! We are big UF fans and just the thought of not being at our rival weekend game gave my FH some panic LOL.

Thanks Kristina! It is a blessing to live in FL sometimes! haha.

I went a wedding a couple years ago the day after TG. It was fine! I did just like you said, spent TG with the family and then celebrated on the weekend. They still had like 200 people show up.

Hey I am getting married on Black Friday this year thought I could help add some pros and cons.

-Travel/accommodations are a little more the weekend after Thanksgiving as opposed to before. However some people maybe force to take those three days off of work in between to avoid traveling twice

- Honeymoon- If you get married the weekend before and want to leave immediately after your wedding you would miss thanksgiving

- All college kids are off from school and able to attend the weekend after (tests tend to come right before the break so they may not be able to make the early trip)

- Everyone has an extra day off the weekend after.

I don't think you have to worry about it being to close to Christmas as your still a month away for either date. People will make either date work so pick the one that you are happier with and don't look back!

I say go with the venue you love. I'd definitely make plans to send out STD's early, so people have plenty of time to arrange their schedule. We chose an Oct date and its such a busy time of year with holidays close by too, so I sent mine out at 8 months.

TARA! I HAVE A DATE TWIN!!!!!!!!!!! HURRAY!

Hi. I'm thinking of getting married on Black Friday of 2019, the day after TG. How did you Wedding turn out? Did guests show up as predicted?

We had a great turn out I was getting nervous we were going to have too many "yeses". My only suggestion would be to start later in the day on Friday. It will allow your guests to travel in that morning and get ready without too much rush. (I believe we started at 5:00pm.) We worked with our hotel to be sure the guests coming from farthest away could have an early check-in, this ensured they would not have to travel in dresses or be doing hair and make up in a bathroom while waiting for a room. I'm really happy with the date we choose, it made attending the wedding a lot easier for a good deal of my guests who were already home/off of work for the holiday. Good Luck!