Out of State Wedding

It really depends on who offers to host and where they feel comfortable throwing the party. If mom wants to throw a shower in your home town, you can't exactly ask her to travel somewhere else and throw you a party.

As far as dress shopping, I would have to think that shopping locally would be easiest, unless you're able to travel once for shopping and then again when the dress arrives.

Agree with above. I know brides in the same situation and they traveled for the showers. Bachelorette you can help plan with your bridal party members and do something out of town convenient for everyone.

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I'm in total agreement with you as far as the shower. I'm just worried about someone offering to host in NY and then me having to decline because I can't get the time off of work or I can't afford the plane ticket to get out there.

We're definitely going dress shopping locally, luckily my parents already planned a trip about a year out of our wedding so that lines up perfectly!

We got married out of state. We live in Maryland. Our wedding was in Pennsylvania. My family lives in a small town in Pennsylvania and my husband's family lives in New Jersey. Some of my bridesmaids live in New Jersey and some live in Pennsylvania. We had my shower in a town in between both families. My bridesmaids drove the distance to attend. My bachelorette was in my hometown. My bridesmaids from New Jersey were unable to attend because one was sick and the other's husband surprised her with tickets to Disney. My brother-in-law's wife had a similar issue as yours though. They live in Ohio which is where her family lives, but all of his friends and family are in New Jersey. My brother-in-law's family had wanted to attend her bridal shower, but she planned for it to be the week after our wedding so none of his family attended her bridal shower because they had already traveled for our wedding. I would talk to your bridesmaids and family to see what they what to do. I know at least one of the bridesmaids in my brother-in-law's wedding flew in for her bridal shower and bachelorette party since she moved out of Ohio for college. You could either have two parties or one, but if you choose to have one I would still invite everyone to that party. For my bridal shower, I still invited people I knew likely wouldn't attend, but I still wanted them to know they were welcome to attend if they wanted to. For dress shopping, we met half way in between to go shopping, but since that doesn't sound like than option for you, I would probably let them choose their own style. I would give them a store, color, fabric type and length and let them decide from there. It is really common now for bridesmaids to wear different dresses in the same color so to me that would be your best bet.

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Thank you for sharing all of that! It makes me feel a lot better that I'm not the first tackling this!

I already wanted my bridesmaids to wear different colors from the same palette so it'll just be deciding where they end up getting their dresses from and making sure the colors we want are available.

Thanks so much for your help!

Hello Syracuse bride! That’s where most of our vendors are haha. So I let all the girls know color and length of dress with ideas but I’m letting them shop alone. We’re planning a bridal shower but while half of our guests are out of state, it’s from Maryland to New York vs Arizona to New York so I’m not much help there.

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How fun! Where are you getting married and what vendors are you using (if you like them, haha!)?

We're planning on getting married at Le Moyne College (I'm a '13 alum so hoping for that discount!).

We’re getting married at Barnes Barn in North Brookfield. We hired photographers from Peel The Moon the main one Gretchen, who is really nice and our videographers starts Strawberry Wedding Company who we met and hired over the phone seem really nice but we haven’t met in person. We’re getting married in October

I am living in Virginia, wedding in Florida and bridesmaids everywhere.

No one offered a bridal shower which is good because I would have probably declined.

We did a bachelorette in Scottsdale that everyone flew to come to.

Dress shopping I did alone with my mom and dad.

Bridesmaid dresses are online with Azazie so the girls could all get them despite living all over the country

I live in Colorado and got married in NC where I’m from. I tried to decline a bridal shower but it got pushed on me. So we did that where the hostess lives in SC. People came if they were able and we had about 20 people there. I also tried to decline a bachelorette but my moh planned one for 2 nights before the wedding. A few people came but most couldn’t get off work. It was fun anyway and honestly I preferred it small. The night before the wedding I invited everyone to the rehearsal dinner as sort of a welcome dinner. As far as the dress shopping, I bought my dress with my stepmom and moh in NC while I still lived there. Then my mom picked it up and shipped it to me. I kept it for over a year and had alterations done. Then I shipped it to my moh a month before the wedding and took it back home with me as a carry on. If I did it again I would have just shopped alone in CO to save at least some of the run around. My bridesmaids did Azazie. I left most decor with my parents and shipped some decor to my moh. I took a planning trip when I had time off work to meet with certain vendors for trials and tastings, things I wanted to do in person. Then after the wedding my parents kept my decor and I’ll get it when I can. It was quite a journey for me, but it made no sense to make everyone fly to Colorado. I also have no sentimental attachment to Colorado. So I made it work.