Out of State guest lists

I suggest picking the area/venue that you and your fiance like best, regardless of if that is in Ohio or Florida. Guests will find a way to travel if necessary to attend the wedding. If you do pick one in Florida, I suggest setting up a hotel room block or two to help guests with finding a place to stay.

We had our wedding in the city where we currently live. Over half of our guests came from out of state with no issues whatsoever. We had a hotel block and lots of people booked rooms there, and others found places on their own such as Airbnb. People will travel to you!

I would have it where you live, as it will make the planning process a lot easier. People should understand the reasoning behind having your wedding near where you live.

I think this depends a lot on what your priorities are and who is on your guest list. If it’s critical that your loved ones attend your wedding, then I’d think a lot about how likely they are to travel. Do they have the finances/time/health to travel? Great! On this forum you’ll often read the claim, “do what you want because people who love you will be there!” I always think that’s potentially naive and hurtful advice. People can love the couple and still not be able to afford to travel or get the time off or be in good enough health to travel. Especially now, in times of Covid, every day there are posts from couples terribly disappointed about the number of people declining their invitations. On the other hand if a wedding in FL is more important than who can attend, your decision is easy.


Pre-Covid, I was a guest at a wedding 3000 miles from 85% of the guests. A long weekend by myself (H didn’t attend with me because of the cost & inconvenience) was over $2500. I would have declined but the B and MOB threw a fit.... If it were now, I’d decline and let them be mad. Good luck figuring out what’s right for you & your guests.

Do you think that your guest would have a problem traveling? If not then choose whichever venue you like the best. But if you think that it may be a burden (whether financially or something else) I probably would have it where most guests will be able to attend.

The majority of our guests are out of state. We chose to get married where we live since most everyone has to travel. It also cuts down on costs on our part by keeping it local.

We got married where I grew up, which is a couple states away from where we live. All of our friends and H’s family ...and many of my extended family had to travel. So, we reserved 2 blocks at nearby hotels for guests to stay, and we opted to provide shuttle service from the hotels to and from the wedding site. It was a little extra work to plan from out of state— had to book a couple extra trips, had to pack a couple weekends with all the vendor appointments and do a couple things on our own schedule, and I had to rely on my local family for some help with a couple things. But otherwise, it was no big deal . I provided my guests with as much info as possible to make travel easy, and planned it on a Saturday late afternoon so that people would have plenty of travel options. Our guests were up for the trip

Considering your wedding isn’t until 2023, I think the pandemic will be in much better control by then. I’d hope there wouldn’t be so many travel restrictions during that time. You can suggest local hotels or AirBnB’s. Me, my fiancé, and our immediate family members live here in TX. But the rest of my fiancé’s family lives in New York. We are trying to move our date from October 2021 to July 2023 in hopes of things being better by then. I plan on waiting things out and then seeing how the pandemic plays out

Girl, do what YOU want. Me and hubs live in Florida and our families are entirely in Maryland and New York. We are getting married in Florida.

We realize that everyone will have to travel, but it makes it a destination for everyone and almost everyone will make it a vacation weekend (our venue is a resort). Venues in Maryland and NY are FAR more expensive. I'm not sure if that's true in Ohio, but it was for us. Also for us, our love story had nothing to do with where our families live-we had to pick a place that was meaningful and special to US. It also makes it infinitely easier to plan when the venue is close to you instead of having to fly a few times to do cake tastings, planner meetings, venue scouts, etc.

Trust me, your guests won't be angry about the destination wedding to Florida.

Do what you want. The people that want to be there will make it happen. I have a similar situation where all our friends and family live in Ohio, but we decided to have a destination wedding. It’s your day-remember that!

Your answers help me feel more at ease with our likely decision to stay in Florida thank you!

We decided to have our wedding in Florida and the only people that live there are my parents. We did what we wanted because I felt that the people that really wanted to be there for us would travel. Everyone treated it like a min vacation and had a blast. What part of Florida are you having it in?