Destination wedding

Not sure ours would count as a destination wedding, but we got married an hour and a half from both of our families. I'm from PA and my husband's from NJ so we picked something in the middle. It was a four hour drive for us as we live in MD. I believe we invited about 140 and 96 of them said they were going to attend, but only about 90 actually attended. Some of the 140 were plus ones that we gave people even though they were single, but we wanted to be nice and give them the option. I will say that you should never invite more than your venue can accommodate though.

View Quoted Comment Sorry, I meant to say 300 instead of 200, but I don’t know how to fix it here.
The venue can have 500 people in total but because of Covid are only allowing 300 people

View Quoted Comment

Oh okay then you should be good. If you use your computer, you should be able to edit it.

This is a know your invitees type of situation. I personally would not travel to Columbia for a wedding. It would be a minimum of 12 hour flight for us. Therefore, I would need to stay at least a week. This adds hotel, food and entertainment costs. Plus, this would be 1/2 of my vacation time for the year.

A family member had a destination wedding from the US to Aruba and about 25% of those invited actually came. At save the dates, about 60% of people said verbally through the grapevine that they would go and as you can see many people backed out. The cost for most people were about $1000 per person, so for a couple it was too expensive for most people.

I’m not sure if this counts either but we live in northern AZ & our venue is 2.5 hours away in the Phoenix area where the majority of our family lives. He’s a firefighter & I work at a hospital so our friends that we invited will have to make arrangements. Some have said they’re not going but for the most part, most are going.

I wouldn't expect anyone more than your immediate family, close extended family and best friends to attend an international wedding. I'd guess 20-50 people?

We invited about 75 and had 43 at our destination wedding. We had 6 last minute, as in week-of, cancelations.

View Quoted Comment Jesse, thank you for your comment!
You’re right, unless you want to pay a lot $$$ you can get a direct flight but most of the flights have connections.
That’s our current situation, people got their save the date 2 weeks ago and almost 90% of the people said yes which it’s quiet crazy for the # of people.

Our wedding planner in Colombia said she hasn’t seen a destination wedding with more than 130 people in her 10 years career.

My friends had there's in the Bahamas and only 25% of those they invited attended. This was pre COVID

You really just need to know your invitees.
I’d got for a very close friend if possible, but it would have to be my bff. However, I also wouldn’t be one to spend $500-1000 to travel for a bachelorette weekend, and lots of people do that, so it varies. (i love travel, but lazy wander around travel, not for big events).

Curious to know about how many people have actually responded that they would go? We are also planning our wedding in cartagena for next year and live in New Jersey.