Weddingbee boards

Well, maybe it's true that the location is more important than the invite list, but how would that be wrong. It's just a different choice.
Getting married is about celebrating your love and making a commitment to each other.
One could argue that having a local wedding with many invitees is "just to put on a show" and make it clear that you have the budget for all kinds of luxuries (I am exagerating here, no offence!)
Miss Manners should maybe learn that passing judgement on people's very personal choices on how they want to commit to each other is a lack of manners.

Ugh, I hate it when people judge couples on their wedding location choice. Like, either you can attend and make a vacation out of it, or you can't. Who the heck cares!? The wedding day, while about families coming together, are mainly about the couple, and people need to respect that.

If I ever get a DW invitation and I can't go, I'll just say, "That's too bad" and go on with life - no judgement passed on how the couple chose to celebrate. Many of my family members who are not yet engaged have said they want destination weddings, and for a close family member, I would be there with bells on barring any major illnesses or severe unforeseen blows to my bank account.

I mostly agree with MM- inviting 375 people and expecting 50 is a little odd. I'm guessing the bride and groom were not inviting 375 close family members and friends :) Perhaps a marriage announcement would have been more appropiate after the wedding?

  I disagree with her slightly snide comment "location matters more than the guest list".. I don't think it matters where a couple gets married, it is their choice (and really cool!).We wanted to do a DW wedding, but the budget wouldn't allow us to pay for both the wedding and our guests travel expenses so we got married local.  As for the last question, both Ms. Manners and the asker are a little caddy. If people want to have a pirate themed wedding- who are they to judge?

@Kittyachi: our guest list was bigger than what we actually expected, because my DH didn't want anyone to feel left out. His argument was: if they can come and would like to take a vacation with us, who would we be to choose for them by not inviting?

@Pugsandkisses: yes it is possible for people to make a vacation out of it, and those who didn't wish to take a vacation at our locale just answered "no" and those who came had a blast.

That being said, we carefully chose our wording in our invites, so that people would NOT be guilted into coming. It was more like, hey, if you want to come for vacation, we're organising a group thing, and we'll get married during that trip. Can't remember the precise words and it was way less casual obviously, but no one felt like they HAD to come. And we have had friends who replied No and went to other vacation places like, the week after. We didn't take offense at all, because we weren't getting married to have the biggest guest list possible.

We enjoyed quality time with each of our guests and it was amazing.

@cakegal: while 375 invites is a large number, we don't know that person and her social circle, so it's easy to pass judgment without knowing.

We knew all people we invited wouldn't be able to come, and we didn't expect them to, but it doesn't mean we didn't care about them - if they could've come, we would have been delighted.
However, having 0, 10 or 100 guests would have never changed the fact that we were getting married at that date. It's not about how many can come, it's about the commitment.
It's a choice that is unconventional, but not mean or selfish. It's about really thinking about what is important to you in your wedding and staying true to that. For some, it's about sharing it with many people, for others it's about it being intimate, for others, it's about committing to each other no matter how many people come.
It's different and it's ok. We don't see anyone passing judgement on huge weddings even if there are lots of things that could be criticized about them, but only because it's the norm. I think it's time for some to stop criticizing what's different just because it's not what you would have chosen and let people celebrate their most important day like they wish to without judging.

I don't know what I think of destination weddings, but I think it really depends on the couple and their intentions.  No one I've ever interacted with who is having a DW has seemed to pick the location for any sort of extraordinarily selfish/rude reason.

The theme weddings answer made me laugh a little, but I don't see how a DW or the wedding of two people who have been living together for a long time is a "theme", nor do I think two people living together for even ten years should be ridiculed or judged as having impure motives (ie., raising enough money to buy a house) if they choose to get married and throw a party for the occasion. Yeesh.  I felt it'd be less special if FI and I waited till we can get legally married for health insurance purposes (ie., 11 years after we'd started living together and agreed we'd get married at some point), but that's just me.  If another couple feels differently, let them have their celebration after ten years.  They're still committing themselves to spending their life with one person, either way.

Meh. I'm sure there are couples throwing DW with some selfish motives, but I'm also sure there are couples throwing hometown weddings with selfish motives.

I think there are two big issues she missed. 1) For many modern families, a DW can be rather convenient. If you have family all over the country, a DW can actually be easier and more pleasant than travelling to the couple's or the bride or the groom's hometown. It isn't like travelling to Chicago (a town I LOVE) in February is SOOO much easier/more pleasant than getting to Mexico. Vacation destinations can have fabulous flight and accomodation deals. 2) People send courtesy invites. That is just true, and I think it is the RIGHT thing to do. I know my grandparents and FI's great aunts aren't going to make it. But that doesn't mean I wouldn't love to have them there, and would exclude them from the invite list.

I'm having a semi-destination wedding (4 hours from my home). It isn't super convenient, but because I chose a gorgeous location, some guests are coming who never would have bothered. The vast majority of the guest list was out of state as it was.

A comment was made earlier about how DW brides and grooms should be ready to face criticism.
I believe that, when planning a wedding, no matter how you plan it, you will get criticism for one thing or another, from your family, inlaws and many people who should just not comment because it's not their wedding.
I sure hope that here on WB, brides who are going through it themselves can have the sensitivity to not do it to others; as we all know how rude it is when people judge and analyse every decision made without knowing the reasons - and without needing to know the reasons because, why should a couple have to justify any of their choices regarding their union, really?

I know this isn't popular, but I can see the point at DWs.  In my family/ social circle, the wedding ceremony is about the bride and groom, but the reception is really for the families to celebrate.  It would be considered incredibly rude if I didn't make accommodations to make sure that both immediate family and other relatives would be able to make it to the ceremony and reception.  Both my FI and I checked with a variety of individuals (immediate family, grandparents, etc) when we picked our wedding date.  Because we wanted to show that we cared for our guests, we chose a location that was easily accessible for a majority of our guests.  This is obviously different in different social circles, but for me, a DW wouldn't be appropriate - as much as I would like to think that a wedding is about the bride and the groom, it's not (at least in my case) - it's about our families coming together and celebrating with the newly married couple.