Destination Reception (w/ small local ceremony before)

Love this idea! How far would the destination for the reception be?
I think plan to do whatever will make you are your FH happiest. I agree with your logic of planning only around your closest guests because it is your day! Best of luck!

Hmmm... not sure this will work. 1) You need to have a reception following your church wedding, even if just cake & punch, to thank guests for coming to your wedding (usually a cake & punch wedding & reception is at a non-meal time like 2 or 3 pm). 2) I’m not sure most guests would travel for a destination reception. Even a vow renewal ceremony & reception might not work because guests want to see you get married, especially for a DW (otherwise it’s just an expensive vaca with obligatory events. Not sure most folks would be into that).

It seems your requirements make a local church option your best wedding option. Why not host a lovely local wedding then go to that destination for your honeymoon?

This isn't something I've thought about before! My initial impression is the number traveling to the destination reception could be very small. The draw for me is to see the wedding ceremony and be with the couple as they get married. If that can be accomplished locally, I probably wouldn't attend the destination reception (which really ends up being a vacation and not a wedding) unless it was at a location I very much was wanting to visit.

My husband wanted a destination wedding and I did not because I knew there were people who would not be able to make it. We compromised by choosing to have a ceremony and reception in MD (between his family and my family) and inviting all of our guests to continue the celebration with us on our honeymoon cruise. It worked out great!

View Quoted Comment Thank you! Considering the Carribbean, Hawaii (we have family there), or even a cruise. We'll have a big party there and otherwise everyone can just be on vacation.

View Quoted Comment A cruise would be really really fun! Sounds like an awesome way to do a destination wedding!

View Quoted Comment You bring up some very good points. I guess I'm using the word reception loosely, as a celebration after an event, though it would be months after in this case. Maybe I'm an outlier, but the reception/party is usually my favorite part of other people's weddings, so I hope that people would still want to attend just to celebrate and spend time with us & those who would feel compelled to attend if invited to a traditional WEDDING wouldnt have that pressure and we wont be offended at all if they dont want to travel for just the celebration.

The reason we aren't just doing a local church wedding is because we want it to be small but we have to invite all of our family members +(we have a combined total of 44 aunts & uncles and over 60 cousins + their SOs & kids) and it will quickly snowball in to a huge event. I just don't want to spend my wedding stressed out trying to entertain 200+ people, some of whom I've never met before (& may never see again), and not be able to spend quality time celebrating with the most important ones.

View Quoted Comment Thanks, Jen! The actually ceremony is important to us, but we want to keep it intimate, probably with just immediate family members and maybe people we both know well. One of the reasons I want to do a destination reception/celebration is to keep the numbers low without causing anyone to feel left out by not inviting them and at the same time not making anyone feel guilty for not coming because it's not actually a Wedding! Haha. Plus, being in paradise with a group of ppl I love (no matter how big or small) would make me much happier than a big one-day event where I have to be the center or attention.

View Quoted Comment That sounds perfect! A cruise is definitely on the list of possibilities for our reception/celebration! We just got back from a trip on Celebrity's newest ship and I was extremely impressed. Did you just send out wedding announcements that doubled as honeymoon invitations?

We included the info on our save the dates - just a short sentence that we wanted them to join us on our cruise leaving the day after the wedding and directing them to our website for booking information.

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You can still do a local church wedding with a small group (you don't HAVE to invite aunts/cousins). Keep it to immediate family, grandparents and your BFFs.

Why don't you run the DW idea by your family & friends to see who would go? Look up estimated costs (flight, transportation, hotel) for them so they would be prepared for the estimated cost. That'll also help you see what you're asking of guests. I went to a DW where the couple paid for the first night of the hotel (and it was off-season so rates were low for the 2nd night). The only other DWs I've attended as a guest were my sister's and my two BFFs. There's no way I'd pay flight + hotel (plus other travel/food costs) unless parent, sibling or BFF. It's too much. Check with your guests to get a head count before planning that route. If they're "in" then awesome!

Love this idea, thinking of doing something similar now and here for the comments :-)

My fiancé and I are currently planning this exact thing! We are doing a 13 person family only ceremony and dinner to follow in our city. Then we are having a destination reception at an all inclusive in Cabo- no redo of the ceremony- and inviting 160 people! Obviously not everyone will come but we didn’t have to cut the guest list very much which felt nice. And We are filming our ceremony, so that is something that will be available for everyone to view ahead of time if they like- then even though we are no redoing a ceremony they still saw it!


Cuts the cost a lot. It still adds up but way cheaper than a traditional wedding with that many guests ☺️

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Hey Alisha!
My fiancé and I are thinking of doing something similar to this. How long apart will you have the reception from the ceremony? And are you planning to get a planner for the intimate reception?

Thanks!

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I'm doing a similar thing! It seems destination receptions are met with a lot of criticism. But I'm happy to hear people are making it work!

I don't know if my experience will help you, but...

We're having the ceremony at home with, roughly, 150 guests and a small "cocktail party" reception to follow. Then we're having the actual reception in Disney World 4 days later. I have a coordinator helping me through the process since I can't be there in person. It's hell-of-a lot cheaper than having a big reception at home and so much more fun to spend time with our guests in the park. Not everyone will attend, but we figure we don't want to have people there that don't want to be there. (My family is extremely critical and holding a wedding in our family is like an Olympic sport - My fiancée and I don't want to compete in their games.)

For anyone wanting to plan a destination reception - it's not as hard as other people may tell you. As long as you have a coordinator on your side to help keep your mind straight; it's a breeze.

Came here for the comments - we are thinking of going this route as well but couldn’t find any info on it being done before. Our wedding guest list is roughly 50 people. One side is super down for a full destination weekend, the other half doesn’t want to leave town.


We are thinking of a small intimate ceremony in town, followed by dinner. Then a week or month later, a destination reception with no ceremony.
All of that would be included in the wedding invitation.

Destination weddings are always so dreamy, and if that's what your heart wants I would definitely say go for it! I considered a destination wedding and planning for one of those is much simpler as well. All you need is a dress, tux, flowers, and officiant! I even found a company called Evergreen bride that has preserved greenery and wooden florals so my bouquet could last during the travel. But I ended up going with just a regular ceremony that was so small, I wish I had just done it at a destination! Much more planning and stress for little extra in return

View Quoted Comment We are also doing this exact same thing. How did you word it on your invites that it is a reception only? Trying to be cautious so people don’t assume they will be seeing us marry. Congrats and thank you for your advise!

I am glad to hear other brides are doing this! Opinions on this I think have changed even in recent years. With weddings, tradition and expectations can really be whatever the couple wants! Of course it is important to consider guests and relationships, but it is perfectly fine to have multiple wedding events to include whomever you want and the rules are okay to break. It is also okay to not invite people if it adds stress or costs too much.

In regards to the local ceremony and destination reception, we are in a similar situation where I really want a fun party/reception but it is too expensive to do it in the town where all my family is. We are paying for it ourselves and we also live across the country from all our family, so we would be traveling anyway. I also have a large family and guest count at around 175. When I started planning a local wedding, I quickly became sad because I knew I would be stressed out with a lot of DIY and organizing for a wedding I didn't want, just to make it easy for the local family who don't like to travel. I have had several family members say, "why don't you elope in a destination and come back and have a party?" or "get married with your family locally and have a destination honeymoon?". While these ideas seem simple, it completely misses the point of having a big party with our close friends at a price we can afford in a super fun location. We would prefer to have a reception/honeymoon with all of our friends and family at an all inclusive resort for 5 days vs 5 hours at some expensive reception hall. We also do not want to elope and be alone for any part of our wedding. We love our friends and family, and that is why we want a vacation with them. We will still take a small honeymoon directly following our destination wedding in a resort next door.

At this point, we are planning to do a ceremony in the town where are families live, followed by a dessert reception. It will be very small and casual with a focus on nieces, nephews, grandparents, siblings, and parents who cannot attend the destination wedding. We will then do a destination ceremony and reception, most likely Mexico, and invite everyone! Because both events are going to be smaller, we will have more time to spend with each guest and actually enjoy ourselves. We will do our bachelor and bachelorette parties the same week as our destination wedding and have the local ceremony party take place of the engagement party. We also don't have a bridal party and have removed many of those expectations from our guests to make it fun and easy for them!

There is a lot of information on the internet about what you should and should not do, but if you are paying for it and you want it a certain way, do what you want and find ways to include others in a different special way! You can make your own wedding traditions!

View Quoted Comment Hi Anna! We are thinking about doing the same thing. A very small ceremony to include my grandparents and then having a destination ceremony and reception. The small local ceremony is only to have my grandparents feel included, otherwise everything would be DW. Did you find that having a small ceremony before hand took away from the “magic” of the destination ceremony? Thanks!