Distance to venue too far?

10 minutes is not too far from the hotel. Ours is about 15 minutes away and that's the closest hotel. As long as you're providing transportation you should be ok.

Why are you going to a little town shops?

Sorry I'll clarify.

Option 1. Stay at hotel in industrial park that is 10 minutes from venue

Option 2. Stay in a town that is 30 minutes away from venue but has shops, b&bs, a playhouse, restaurants, etc within walking distance

I didn't realize how my original post was misworded, thank you for asking!

I guess it depends how early people are coming in or how late they are staying. A lot of our guests stayed in the same hotel as us, but they wouldn't have had time to go to shops, etc as they checked in the afternoon of the wedding, and went home the next day after checkout.

That's a really good point. I think most are staying 4-5 days in total but not everyone.

Can you give people the option of choosing either hotel or are you hoping everyone will stay at the same one? If they're staying 4-5 days (why by the way?), then the one 30 minutes away should be no big deal since the only day they have a 30-minute commute is on the wedding day and the rest of their time can be spent doing stuff in town.

@therightLane why is providing transportation to the hotel mandatory?

Personally, I wouldn't mind driving for 30 minutes at all (I'm a city girl, that's literally nothing around here) but I might take issue with being in a limo for 30 minutes. Very often limos have mostly sideways seating and I get very carsick riding that way. Also, I'm always leery of a driver I don't know. The driver might be great or he might not be and if he's not a smooth driver I could end up sick for your whole wedding to the point where I couldn't even sit through the ceremony and since I would have come in the limo I wouldn't have a way to leave even. So to me if it was a carpooling situation and I knew I could drive/get shotgun I'd be fin with it. Riding in the limo not so much. My whole family fights over who drives when we go anywhere because we all get carsick (though no one worse than me). This is really going to be a personal thing to me. If I weren't affected by this I wouldn't mind the ride at all.

Also, a lot to me would depend on how much spare time your guests will have. If they will be mostly just getting up, going to the wedding, and then coming back then I really don't see why it matters where they stay. But if they will be coming in a day or two early and might have some spare time over those days then I would vote for the little town. I'd rather have something fun to do for several hours and have to drive a bit longer than sit in a hotel during that time just to have a shorter drive.

I would have guests stay closer, and then put on your website and/or in your welcome bags info about the cute shops about 30 mins. away.