Experience with Destination Wedding

We did a destination wedding in Sarasota. The ceremony was on Lido Beach and the reception was at the Holiday Inn Lido Beach across the street in the GORGEOUS Sand Dollar dining room. We had 41 guests and the reception was $125pp. It was PERFECT! The Holiday Inn is literally across the street in the background.

Holiday Inn Lido Beach - Sand Dollar Dining Room

I think this sounds like a lovely idea!

My FH and I wanted a relatively small wedding, and discussed doing a destination wedding since we're both huge warm beach fans living in the Northeast. But we wanted my grandparents and his grandpa to be able to attend, and we knew they wouldn't be able to travel that far. Our wedding instead will be ~80 people and driving distance for most of our guests. I'd be sure to consider this with your immediate family guest list (if there are older people on the list).

The other thought with destination weddings is that they can be pretty pricey. The cost of airfare and hotel to get there could put some people off in terms of attending. So if there's anyone who's short on cash, but is in that 20 person list, consider either helping them out so they can come, or being able to live without them being present.

Hope that helps! Good luck!

I've done many legal weddings here in the US before the couples went to islands or other countries to get married (this is a very wise idea, by the way). Most of them were doing extremely small destination groups; like under 10.

Just as a personal aside, before I'd plan this, I'd run it by the guests you cannot live without and get their honest opinions on this. No matter how close I was to a couple, I could almost never afford the time or money to essentially go on a vacation I didn't choose.

We thought a destination wedding with be a little less expensive than doing it local, but everything is adding up quickly. I think having a really intimate ceremony and just dinner and drinks will help keep the cost low. The only thing i suggest is to get married in the off season if possible. The rates for EVERYTHING go up during the summer time because that's when people vacation to FL. Also, from what I understand, there is about a 95% chance it's going to rain in the middle of the day. Other than that I would say you could definitely keep the cost low.

Alternative plan B;

Everyone knows we're small wedding champions here; all my officiants love them. What if you found a 'destination' close to home? The NJ shore in off season (as early as mid Sept) is gorgeous, so is the Hudson Valley. I'm sure there are many cool places right in your neighborhood that your guests have never been to. (In my area, we have a castle, Bear Mountain, a fabulous pavilion atop Mountain Creek, several arboretums, wineries and Waterloo Village, which is like being way out in the country. The Alpine Boat Basin has a fabulous stone structure built into the Palisades on river level, and there are a multitude of B&B's that could be in Vermont.)

NYC is one of the most popular destinations in the world; we book many, many tiny weddings for people from the UK, Australia and Canada.

I guess it's all in your point of view, but that might make it easier to manage, and slightly cheaper for everyone.

We are doing a 16 person destination wedding in Lake Tahoe. It was hard to find a venue to work with us within budget, but after lots of emails we were able to get a rooftop ceremony and reception overlooking the lake/mountains for 3k which includes food and drinks. Other expenses are adding up fast, like flights will be around 1k just for the two of us, so be aware of how quickly other stuff adds up.

We are in Orlando and we're looking at a beach wedding as well and found a company to do the ceremony relatively cheap, but most places for a reception have a 4-5k food and beverage minimum even on a Friday night, so we were just going to do a restaurant.

I agree with Celia's advice about speaking with everyone you want to attend, and making sure they're able to make the trip before moving forward with your plans. My FH and I recently scrapped our plans for a large, local wedding and we are now doing an intimate destination wedding in Hawaii. Hawaii wasn't our first choice in regard to the destination, but it was a destination that worked out for our nearest and dearest (not to say that Hawaii doesn't look insanely amazing! We absolutely cannot wait). We are doing a simple beach wedding, and then having dinner at a local restaurant. The ceremony and dinner combined are very low in cost, our major expenses are flights and accommodations, of course, but we are also combining our honeymoon into the trip, and some group activities we have planned for our 15-20 guests (a sunset dinner cruise and a luau). We are spending half the money for our wedding and honeymoon combined than we would have on just the large, local wedding alone, plus we are going to have such an amazing time with our family. I highly suggest doing a small destination wedding, but as I mentioned before, talk it over with your nearest and dearest first! Good luck!!

Edited because words are hard without coffee!

Thank you all for the thoughts and recommendations, this is extremely helpful. We've been originally thinking a family backyard wedding at home, but the cost and size of the event is adding up every day. I really wanted something very small, I have only a handful of family that would attend (and on my side all of them would be fine traveling within the US). My FH has a very large extended family that all live locally, which is why the size of our at home wedding is growing rapidly (got to invite everyone and everyone is very lotto attend). However FH immediate family are just parent and two brothers, and maybe a handful of aunts and cousins that would be willing to travel and make a vacation out of it. I started looking at key west after I posted this but willing to look anywhere in Florida. Doing a quick look March is the end of Mid season and might be perfect timing for us. My major concern is finding a resort or hotel that would accommodate a small scaled back wedding with a simple ceremony and allow us to just do dinner, drinks and maybe of music so we have a little dancing (or has a bar on site). It's a second wedding and while I'd love to have a big event at home, the small intimate one still appeals to me.

Keep doing your research. You will have to contact possible venues and see what options they have, if they don't openly list them online. A lot hotels in popular wedding destinations tend to have a whole range of options. I would also suggest that if you can't find an affordable option through a hotel, look into public beaches and hosting your guests at a restaurant for dinner. FH and I decided not to go for a hotel package, because we are more the type to want to have our own touch on things, and not be restricted to certain vendors or options. We found an amazing officiant, and she has helped us find a ceremony spot (from afar), and has given us vendor recommendations for whatever we are looking for. Good luck with your research and planning! You will find the right option, you just might have to dig around a little to find it

We did a destination wedding in Florida on the beach (Vilano Beach in St. Augustine Florida). It was absolutely perfect!!!! And no... it wasn't super expensive either. We had 30 people (including us)there. We used sun and sea beach weddings. They did everything for us and were super, super helpful. We did not go with an all inclusive resort for the wedding. We found that to be more expensive. We had a dinner at a restaurant nearby for a reception with a cake. It truly was perfect in every way!

I would agree with people... make sure to check with those that you REALLY want there first. Then realize that even though they say yes, there could be things or reasons that they can not come. (We invited 45 and 30 were able to make it!). We also were married in March too! It was not super busy for the wedding planners at that time. However, the weather might be colder than you might like. The day we got married it was 82 degrees. But for three weeks prior to us getting married it was like 65 degrees as the high. So just know that too. The weather might be a little tricky at that time.

As far as finding a small hotel to handle your small wedding... you shouldn't have a problem! We use the Hampton inn on Vilano Beach. They were absolutely able to handle our wedding guests. They didn't plan everything but we used them for all our hotel guests. They did a great job! They had welcome stuff for each guest as well as handling our photographer and letting us take pictures around the hotel as well as taking deliveries of flowers, pizza etc the day of! They were great!

If you have more questions, feel free to ask!

OP I don't know how much it would cost but maybe look into a country club or a restaurant? I agree hotels have all sort of package sizes as well. Check senior centers, houses of worship, and clubs like knights of columbus or the local elk lodge. A lot of places like that have function halls they'll rent out and can be an affordable option.

We had a destination wedding (not at a beach and not small, but a DW nonetheless). First, I would run it by your VIPs and see what they think. Don't be surprised that some people won't be excited about it or that some people who are excited now won't be when it comes time to buy tickets. Second, make sure you have an on-site coordinator who has good reviews. FL resorts all usually have this, but check out the reviews. It doesn't matter how many good reviews the hotel/resort gets if the coordinator isn't good. Third, if you're getting married in the states, there's no reason to make it legal ahead of time. Just research the laws for obtaining a marriage license in FL (or whatever state you choose) and follow them. Fourth, you can have a destination wedding that's still within driving distance to you, which IMO, is the best of both worlds because you can still drive to the venue if you need to before the wedding to get things done. If you choose a location you need to fly to, you likely won't see it again after booking until your wedding week. I liked being able to drive up to our venue for the tasting, picking a baker, meeting with the florist, etc.

Good luck!

Look at tide the knot beach weddings, they will do ceremonies on the beach in several Florida gulf locations. Then you can look for restaurants with private rooms. We were going to do this in St. Pete Florida, get married on the beach, dinner at a restaurant and then go to jimmy bs beach bar because they have fire pits and live bands on a big deck on the beach.

Wow ladies you are wealth of information...I haven't been able to log on and do a proper board search, so just getting your replays to our spur of the moment idea has me really thinking. I was wondering if there was a way to just do a beach ceremony and restaurant dinner so the vendors you provided are perfect. Back to planning and researching thank from the bottom of my heart!