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I'm from a small town about 40 miles (or 50-60 minutes) away from a major city, and a lot of the people in that small town tend to not like leaving that small town. However, for the look I wanted and the size of our reception, FI and I couldn't find anything in our area that fit both requirements. We fell in love with a place in the city, and we booked. He and his family are from only about 20 miles out of the city, and a lot of our friends live there. However, a member of my family has complained that we aren't getting married in our town and that she has to "travel" to get to the wedding. Our ceremony and reception are in the same place, to alleviate any extra travel pain. We LOVE the city and go there often, so to get married there just kind of fits us.
So this has me thinking, bees, how far away is your venue from where you live?
We had the same complaints from people (my now SIL) that they "had to cross state lines to get to our wedding" and how that was rude of us... The venue (ceremony AND reception) was just under an hour from where we live. But we wanted oceanfront, and we live just under an hour from the ocean. So they can deal with it. People should just shut up.
@tntrav44: We have a similar situation. Our wedding wont be where we live by any means. We are having guest stay in Stowe, VT, but the actaul wedding will be in Waitsfield, which is about 40 min away. We are having guests stay in Stowe, as there is much more to do there, and his family has an amazing house there, which we are having a BBQ at the day before the wedding.
Your never going to please everyone and someone will complain about something, so you do what makes you happy. That is what counts and what should be. I right off the bat had someone make a comment about the 40min distance. Oh well!
Uhhh 3 hours? Haha we are getting married about 20 minutes away from my hometown, but FI and I now live in his hometown. All of his family will have to travel 3 hours to our venue. Most of my mom's family lives in CT so they will be traveling about 3 hours as well. We're setting aside hotel blocks, but most of our guests live about a half hour away and will just drive home after the reception.
No matter what you do, people will find something to complain about. Just smile and tell them that if the trip is too hard for them, they can stay home!
We live in Ontario and we're getting married near Montreal where I grew up, which is around 6 hours from here. No one who is traveling from Ontario has complained yet. My FSIL is getting married in Jamaica, so our measly 6 hour travel time looks pretty short in comparison lol. We expect that some people might not show because of the distance, but all the essential people will be there. :)
An hour is nothing. If they don't want to go, they don't have to. Complaining to the couple about it is rude imo.
I think the problem was that we were originally discussing doing a tent wedding on my parents' property (they live on about 190 acres of beautiful farmland), but after thinking about vendors and catering, we thought it'd be too much of a pain. This family member had her wedding in her backyard, and I think she thought if she could do it, we could do it too.
You can't make everybody happy. Someone will always find something to complain about. We just sent out the invitations and people already complained about the chicken dish we offer. Well, have the beef then!
I don't think driving an hour to attend a wedding is too much to ask for. The only time I was annoyed at a wedding was when the ceremony site was an hour from the reception site and we weren't even allowed into the reception venue because we got there 'too soon'. Otherwise, I have driven 3 and 6 hours, and flown across an ocean to attend a wedding. One hour is nothing!
@tntrav44: Errr, good for her?! It's your wedding, you can have it wherever you want!!
Haha sorry I have been dealing with so many stupid complaints lately, I have a short fuse when it comes to things like this. I still stand by my previous comment. If it's too far for her, she can stay home!
We are having our ceremony in Chicago but our reception is in northwest Indiana so yes they technically have to go to a different state but we are about 45 minutes from the venue. I get a little annoyed when people say why so far but oh well and I figure people who want to be there will make it there so I'm not worried.
People will complain about anything. I live in Bermuda, FI is from South Africa, and I'm from Texas. No matter where we were going to have it people are traveling. It is in Texas, but I have family driving 8 hours accross Texas, and then friends flying from Boston, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Scotland, and South Africa. Most of my friends that are traveling are super excited to visit Texas, but my family is complaining about it...guess I should've had it in South Africa. lol
I voted under 30 minutes away.
Do what you want though! There is no way to make every guest think everything you want is perfect, people will always find something to complain about.
From where I live, my ceremony is 15 minutes east of my house, and my reception is 15 minutes west of my house haha.
Although we live in the middle of nowhere, so the ceremony and reception are in two different cities.
We live in London, and we're getting married in NYC, so about 3000 miles away, I guess! It's a bit daunting, planning everything from so far away, but it's starting to come together.
And I agree, you should totally go with where your heart is, and where you and your FI feel most comfortable.
Our Ceremony & Reception are in the same place & are 45 minutes from my house... closer to an hour from some of our other guests
Our wedding and reception venues are 18 miles apart and people are complaining about it. The wedding is about 30 minutes from my hometown. Oddly, my family complains about this but not FI's family who are traveling 6+ hours to our wedding.
Our venue was 10 hours from where we live! So I consider that a destination wedding
We actually had our reception in a different state than our ceremony. We live not too far from the border so it was only a 30 min drive. My MIL went around telling everyone is was almost 3 hours away and put up a big thing and other people told me noone would come to my ceremony since they were in different locations.
But the wedding turned out perfectly, we had only a 10% decline rate and had no no-shows. If you can try to block out the negative comments, people will be there to support you and your FI no matter what.
We are the only ones from where we currently live attending the wedding, it is a 2.5 hour drive from our town (wedding in my partner's home town).
About 1/3 of our guests live in the same town as the wedding, and it will be a 15-20 minute drive for them. Some of my family live about 1.5 hours away from the wedding site and a few other family members will be flying in. So aside from a handful of guests everyone is OOT, including ourselves.
I agree, I don't think an hour is bad at all, especially if it is a trip to a city fromt he surrounding area.
Ours is 3 hours away. We used to live in Dallas and recently moved to a smaller town, but we're getting married in Dallas to keep travel easy for our OOT guests. I also used to work at our venue, so that was definitely an added incentive in choosing where to get married!
It can be sort of complicated planning things from a distance, but luckily we're close enough we can come in every month or so for meetings and to take care of contracts.
We are getting married about 90 minutes from where we live, and a 5-6 hour plane flight away from most of our guests. So 20 miles seems like nothing.
Traveling for weddings is pretty common in our group of friends since people are pretty spread out. The closest I've ever had to travel was an hour drive and that was only because we were moving out to the area anyway so we bumped up our move a couple weeks to be here for the wedding. The second closest was about an hour and forty minutes. The rest were somewhere between 200 and 10,000 miles away.
Our ceremony and reception are being held in the same location. Which is in fact in a different state than I live and it is right at the border of the next state up lol. I live in Ohio, our venue is in WV and PA's border is 2 min up from the exit. Talk about a Tri-state area lol. It will take local people 25min max to get to the venue and some out of state family 4 to 5 hrs. But, for the most part it's all local and under a half hour driving distance.
@TinyTina: Haha, that's kind of how I'm starting to feel.
Thanks for all of your responses! This makes me feel better.
Our venue is 45 minutes away from where FH and I live, but it is 15-20 minutes away from where the majority of our guests live.
We had a hometown wedding - meaning we got married where we grew up, not where we're living now. It wasn't destination though, because 70% of our guests live there (1/2 of my family, most of his family, some mutual friends, parents' guests).
It was about 20 minutes from my parents' house and about 30 from his parents' house.
Our ceremony venue is about 40 mins from where we live. and the reception is about 10 mins from the ceremony venue.
We chose our venue because it's the most convienent for US. It's only sevearl miles away.
@tntrav44: Whats sad is people are so worried about themselves and how convenient it is for them that they forget that the bride and groom are going out of their way to make it a magical night for everyone.
Do whatever you want to do. It's your day and in the end the only thing that matters is that you're married to the one you love
I'm in the same situation as you are! And I thought I was the only one :-) I wanted my wedding in an oceanfront hotel or venue because there will be a lot of people coming in from out of state (groom's family), and I really wanted to have a tropical wedding. My hometown does not have any oceanfront venues that we liked and there's not a lot to do in the area either, so my fiance and I booked a hotel an hour and half away. There's family that live closer, but some are far. I worried that they wouldn't do the trip to go to our wedding, but at the same time I know that those that want to see me getting married, will be there.
Ha, if it were me, I'd have put on my sweetest, most understanding face and said, "We completely understand if you can't make it. We know not everyone likes to travel."
Seriously, it sounds like it totally makes sense in your situation to not have the wedding in the small town. Your family member can always choose not to come if she really hates traveling 60 minutes that much.
As for us, our venue is about 10 minutes away from our home. Most of our family & friends can drive there in about 45 minutes or less, so that's lucky for us!
We got married in the city where we live, which is about 40 minutes away for his family, and two hours away for my family. I think his family grumbled a little more than mine did because they had to drive in to the city, and don't like dealing with parking, etc., etc. My family always thought I would get married where we lived, and didn't mind at all. Our wedding was a reflection of us.
Our church and venue is an hour and half from where we live. That is where I grew up. However the actual church and venue from each other is like maybe 2 miles. Most of my side for the wedding will be from that same town now FI he is originally from a differ state so his side you are talking probably a 10 to 12 hour drive depending where they are coming from. So we don't expect to many from his side to come
FI and I live in Los Angeles and are getting married in upstate NY - so its a trek. My family is scattered throughout the west coast and his lives on the east coast. He has a huge family and they are very tight knit. My family is very small and honestly some of them would complain about crossing the street. It just made more sense to have it back there. Plus the cost differential was insane - we can have a much nicer day for a fraction of the cost. I've gotten a few comments from my Dad about the travel, but I just ignore him. Our friends are all over the states now. So, someone will always have to travel. Just do what you want and ignore the complainers. It is not their wedding. If they want to foot the bill then they can have a say. I agree with Bubu62 - just say, I understand and we will fully understand if you can't make it due to the 1 hour of travel time (I mean seriously - it's an HOUR).
We live near DC, but had to get married in Massachusetts (since DC didn't have same-sex marriage at the time). Then again, the guests were my brother and his wife from Oregon, my sister from southern Mexico, my ex-husband from DC and his sister from Massachusetts, one friend from Chicago, and three friends from DC. No matter where we had our ceremony, it was going to be a long trip for most of the guests.
I voted other. We are seriously like less than 5 minutes down the road.
We are having our ceremony in the main big city and then our reception is about a 15-20 minute drive away in the smaller city we live in.
We have had no complaints so far and are planning on starting the cocktails and nibbles straight after so the guests can go ahead to the reception straight from the ceremony if they want to.
@tntrav44: My ceremony and reception are literally a 1/2 mile away from each other, on the same exact road. That's ok, but all the (safe) hotels are about 10ish miles away, which I know there's nothing I can do but I feel it may not be as convienient. There are a lot of hotels around where I live, but not super close to the venue. I hope everyone is ok with that.
@7SEVENJ9: The complaint about having to cross state lines to get to your wedding amuses me. We live in the Maryland suburbs of DC. We end up constantly crossing state lines to or from either DC or Virginia. Seriously, folks, it's not like they check passports at the border!
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