Destination Wedding??? DREAM OR NIGHTMARE

Well if you are not paying for your guests, it's way cheaper. The only thing you have to worry about is attendance. How many people do you think would actually be able to attend? It can be a financial burden on your guests and with less than a year left, you would have to get a move on it.

Well - that is a pretty broad question! :o) DW are as challenging and different and individual as any wedding. There really is no "magic number" as far as cost. It all has to do with your budget, the location, time of day, day of week etc. I am having a DW in the caribbean and planning from nyc. There are some resorts that have DW packages- I've seen other WW ladies post about it... you may want to search the forums.

Im so glad we have chosen to have a DW but its not easy. You also have to consider your guest list and who will be available and can afford to travel for your special day.

You will need to get your venue locked down ans save the dates out- ttypically they go out one year ahead.

DW are not automatically cheaper or cheaper at all - it all depends on your choices, just like an in town wedding.

We recently changed our wedding to a DW wedding in Maui. Our budget is 9k without travel and even though we went from 125 guests to 22 for our DW the cost for Maui is going to be about the same because we are going to host everyone for 4 days at a family owned beach resort. Basically we have decided to go with the flow and let our WC take over. We have told her what we want and we have found a site to house everyone. I am finding this is much less stress than our original plans.

We are doing a DW in Jamaica. It can be as simple or as elaborate as you want.Most resorts do have packages for you to choose from. We are getting married at a Sandals resort . I would suggest to decide how much it really means to you have guests at your dw. You can have a dw with just you and your future hubby and have a reception when you get back. You can also invite guest to join you on your special day. For us we are paying for everything ourselves with at $10,000 budget . Very small guest list, I mailed out 50 invites. Our guest have known about out dw since last June and I mailed out SDT's in October. We knew going into this the guest that were going to be there no matter where we had the wedding. I emailed the links to our website that had all of the details regarding the wedding last Septemeber. We did not use a travel agent. There are some things I would have done differently but if you have any questions just PM me.

It looks like my Oahu wedding is going to turn into a San Francisco wedding with an Oahu vow renewal some other time. But here were the places I planned on using:

Minister services from her (love her!):

http://www.hawaiianalohablessings.com/packages/

And ala carte the rest (photos, video, flowers etc) from here:

http://www.bridaldreamhawaii.com/alacarte.html

We are doing a destination wedding and the costs for us are much higher than if we would have gotten married in the place where we live. But that is for different reasons.

We chose to get married at the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress and we are paying $1500 (without taxes) for an intimate wedding. Let me know if you'd like to have more info (brochures, prices, menu's etc.).

Moving your wedding farther away, all by itself, tends to raise costs. For those who claim to have saved by having a DW, typically one or both of these factors was involved:

1. The guest list went way down. If it's expensive to get to the wedding, fewer people will come. However, you need to think about whether some of the ones who won't be able to come will be people you want to have there.

2. The cost per guest went down. In some instances, this is because a low cost-of-living area was chosen for the DW. More commonly, it is because the DW is being held at an all-inclusive resort, and all of the guests have to stay at the resort. Since the guests have already in effect paid for their own dinners, the price for the bride and groom of having a dinner reception may be pretty nominal. However, I have a rather negative reaction to "saving money" by imposing the cost on your guests.