Destination Wedding Etiquette...Invitations? Announcements? Showers?

I've seen several different things for destination weddings. I would suggest sending invitations to your family/ friends that are coming and those who you would like to have at your wedding (even if they aren't coming). After your actual wedding you should send out announcement/ invitations to the reception. You can always tell people at the shower about the upcoming reception, that way they'll have someting to look forward to. I've attached something I've done in the past to give you an idea.

I am also doing a DW in Dominican Republic. What I did was sent out announcements with the location of the wedding and RSVP cards. Those who replied that they will be attending received invitations. But all those that received announcements are invited to the shower. I am also having another reception when I get back home. I also have invitations for that invite.

I have two separate thank you cards. One thanking everyone for travelling which they will be receiving the wedding day. The second set of thank you is for those that attend the reception at my home town.

I think you should send out wedding invitations to those you want to invite, even if you know they can't make it. I didn't have a destination wedding but I have family on the other side of the country and sent them invitations any ways knowing they would not be able to attend. People like to feel like they are a part of your wedding even if they can't be there

I'd send out invites to everyone, even the ones I knew couldn't make it. Some people surprised me and actually came, which was great. My MOH organized the shower before we left. We didn't send announcements as everyone received an invitation.

We had a co-ed shower/engagement party before our DW, and invited a lot of local people whom we couldn't invite to the DW itself (the location had a pretty strict size limit) or whom we had invited but couldn't attend. After the wedding, we sent out announcements to everyone who had been invited to the DW as well as a lot of people who weren't.

We're also having a hometown reception in September, so we put STDs for that in the announcements for the people we were inviting. I just mailed out the reception invites yesterday. You have a whole year to throw a reception following a wedding, according to traditional etiquette, so I think it makes sense to send out announcements after the wedding with either STDs or reception invitations, depending on how soon you're having the reception. (Since you want to send out the invitations 6-8 weeks in advance of the event, we couldn't send them out with announcements in June. If you send them too early, people just lose them.)

To clarify, the co-ed shower/engagement party was kind of a pre-wedding reception--we paid for it, had it in a local bar we like, had an assortment of appetizers and whatnot and sparkling wine. It was fun. :-)

I think if you are trying to keep the destination wedding small, it's perfectly acceptable to just send invites to the reception and save some money. With facebook and all the other social networking, they're going to realize you got hitched already.