How far is too far to travel??? -Venue Selection

Every wedding is a destination wedding for some of your guests. What venues are you looking at?

As long as the whole wedding happens there, I don't see a problem with it. The problem to me would be if you had your ceremony in central PA and then the reception in NJ.... maybe look into staying with all the girls in a hotel the night before, so that you are closer?

If they are close to you they will travel the distance. Hubby and I have traveled from New Jersey to Dallas and another time from New Jersey to Memphis. And we're going to a wedding a Barbados in May. If we weren't close to them, we would have declined.

Are there hotels near the venue? After traveling from Central PA to New Jersey, would be nice if they didn't have to travel too far from the venue to their hotel.

Cecelia Milton- I never thought about it that way. You are absolutely correct!

We are looking at The Tides Estate and the Gramercy at Lakeside Manor.

Future Mrs. JKR - We are planning to have the ceremony and reception at the same venue. There are also hotels nearby as well. Thanks very much for the input!

Nay - I agree! That is an excellent point. That makes me feel more comfortable when looking for venues with a longer commute. I just have to be mindful about nearby hotels. Thank you!

Two gorgeous venues; I love both of them ;-) I ADORE the Tides, and the new room is totally luscious. The Gramercy is beautiful too. I'd be hard pressed to pick between them, because the people at each place are amazing, but the gardens at the Tides are beautiful if having an outside ceremony space is important to you. There are great hotels near both of them, and wow, being near NYC in the summer is really a great motivation for your guests to take a long weekend and enjoy the area.

Did you look at Waterworks in Philly? We were there on Tuesday, and it's got a kinda cool steampunky vibe to it.

Another great one that might be midway would be the Rock Island Lake Club, in Sparta. It's brand new; I think we're doing one of their first weddings there in October, but the owner is a long time vet in the business and the place looks just gorgeous. It might give you a combination of the polished feel that the Tides and Gramercy with a giant lake really ON the premises.

I had my wedding about an hour to two hours from FH's family. The acceptance rate was 30%. But then again he's not very close to them so......... Just my experience. What time of the day is it? If it ends in the evening then most people will have to get a hotel room for the night. That could affect their decision.

Snarky- We would prefer to have an evening wedding. That is another thing to consider. That could possibly deter people. Thanks for the response!

We wanted our venue to be max 90 minutes from the areas where the majority of our guests will come from. We haven't sent out invites, but we're keeping it mostly to family, and we're close, so we expect about half the invitees will chose to stay over in a hotel, and half will simply drive home. We are ending the reception at 6:30pm, so people can drive in and home the same day.

I'd absolutely drive 2.5 hours for a close friend's wedding - but we'd stay at the hotel. Most hotels will require you to guarantee a minimum number of bookings, so my recommendation is to assume that anyone driving more than 2 hours will want to stay over, especially if your event ends in the evening, divide by 2, and reserve that block of rooms.

Nay is absolutely right. I invited a group of friends from my old job-- the ones who live furthest accepted and are making the trip (the longest making a NINE HOUR drive), while the ones within an hour of the venue declined.

I don't think 2 1/2 hours is too far for your guests. BUT! I would advise you to consider how you are going to get planning done. You will likely have to make several trips to the venue throughout the process, and potentially have meetings with vendors local to that area. I think its doable, but you definitely want to have a plan in place BEFORE you sign a contract.

Most of my couples, near and far, do almost all of their planning on Skype or Face Time (we have a lot of couples in the UK and Australia...) Obviously you can't do that with a venue; at some point you need to visit and taste, but a lot of your preliminary work can be done digitally.

Barbara- I have to be honest, I thought about the planning part but I did not REALLY think about the planning part (i.e. making several trips to the venue). I am such a novice! Thank you for the insight! I must really consider that factor.

I will drive 2-3 hours for a wedding no problem (if it is on a Saturday), but I MUCH prefer a good hotel block with a discount/transportation if I do, so I can crash/cab it if needed.

Our travel between 30mins and 2hours . We wanted them to travel to fl but then again no one would drive 6 hours to one wedding

To add to what Celia said, yes, to an extent you can use skype/phone calls/email. But consider something as simple as makeup. If you're going to hire a professional, you're almost certainly going to have to book a make-up artist local to that area, and you're definitely going to want a trial. So, that's one 2 1/2 hour trip each way. But let's say you don't like how the makeup turned out-- then that's going to potentially be *another* 2 1/2 hour trip each way!! This has come up with several brides who are having destination and semi-destination weddings. . . again, you can consolidate trips and do a ton of stuff each time, but you will really need to plan in advance to coordinate multiple schedules.

We live 6 hours away from our venue and 90% of our guests are from out of town, ranging anywhere for 45 minutes away to the other side of the country. We know we will have guests from 11 different states coming to our wedding. Both of our families and friends are so spread out.

I've also travelled long distances for weddings for the people I care about and I don't really mind the road trip. We drove 8 hours to one wedding earlier this year, 6 hours to a wedding over the summer. We have a wedding this weekend that's 5 hours away and one next weekend that's 6 hours away.

If they love you they'll find a way to be there.

We are driving an hour and 10 minutes to our venue. About half the guests will be inconvenienced because they will be driving from "home". We have several guests that will be traveling via car and plane that LOVE we chose a venue relatively close to the airport. No matter where we chose, we were going to inconvenience about half the guests.

Thank you all for the feedback and guidance. My FH and I have much to consider. It seems like it turned from us planning a wedding into us making sure the venue works for everyone else (and then considering our opinion last). LOL

Our venue is about an hour and half drive for most of the guests. It ranges from 30-45 minute drive for my half of the invite list to 45-90 minutes for his half of the invite list. We tried to find a place in the middle, but the venue we fell in love with definitely wasn't in the middle. We just visited there yesterday again & my FSIL said she is even more excited for our wedding now after seeing the venue, and that it's definitely a venue that fits us perfectly. The guests who are the closest to you and are able will make your wedding. You can't please everyone, there's always going to be a group that has to travel.