TLDR: we have friends getting married in the same country we plan to get married in, and they sent out their save the dates before us. It’s a lot to ask the same friend group to go to the country twice in a couple months. Delaying the wedding means we could have our dream wedding with the most possible people, but it also means the implications of aging parents, increased health risks during pregnancy, and more time for catastrophe to strike. Would appreciate any advice if delaying it makes sense or I don’t know what we’re going to do lol. Thanks so much!
My fiancé and I got engaged recently. He wanted to do a local wedding since he wanted everyone to be able to come, I wanted a destination wedding (since it was significantly cheaper more beautiful, and more of an experience for guests). I visited 6+ places in the country of choice early last summer, and fell in love with one in particular.
After getting engaged, we started looking into catering halls and even DIY options (with a tent rental), and are consistently getting quoted $72k+ for just the venue and food alone. The 72k also excludes essentials like cocktail stations and dessert lol. We have a lot of people and my fiancés side is large and non-negotiable for who they need to invite. This is totally out of budget and truthfully I hate the idea of spending 6 figures all in for a 5 hour party, as does my finance. So he came to the conclusion that abroad would be our only option, since it is 1/3 the price and we could subsidize our guests who could not afford the trip.
The problem is my fiancé’s friends got engaged later in the summer last year, and are getting married in the same city as I had wanted my destination wedding in (not abnormal since this is the main city of our ethnic background home country) for a wedding at the end of next summer. My fiancé thinks it’s too much (time especially, and $ wise) to ask the same friend group to travel to the same country twice, and does not want to offer to subsidize costs since it looks “desperate”. We don’t want a wedding where almost none of his closest people can’t be there, because the fun times we dreamed of won’t be with friends. We were considering talking to the friends getting married and asking if they would be okay with us getting married the week after so our friends wouldn’t have to travel twice. But it would be at an awkward time of year and I think most of my loved ones can’t go at that time. Plus we don’t know if it’s the same venue that I have been in contact with since before they were engaged. Then getting married the same summer would be out of the question.
Pushing it to the following year makes a lot of sense for a lot of reasons: gives family/friends extra time to plan/save so more people can come; likely guarantees us a weekend that we can celebrate us with our friends; more time to plan and save $ for ourselves. But pushing it also comes with a lot of concerns, which I think may hold even higher priority: I have health issues so waiting could mean higher risk to myself and could also be the difference between being able to have 1 vs 2 (vs 0) kids; I have potential fertility issues, so delaying TTC by 12 months means forgoing 12 changes to try; aging parents - a lot more can change in a year at 70 than 55, plus that’s one year less they’ll be with their grandkids, plus 1 year could be the difference between meeting their second grandchild or not. My last fear (I admit very fear driven) is that 365 days is a lot of time for something to go wrong - it’s 365 more chances for a tragedy where someone we love won’t be around.
I’m taking precautions and getting my fertility and carrier ability checked, and will consider embryo/egg freezing. But that still doesn’t cover my fears of aging parents and catastrophe striking.
Just wondering if anyone was in a situation like me - what you chose. Or if anyone has tips in general I’d appreciate it. Thanks
