(Closed) Am I Expected To Stick With My Family Entire Destination Wedding?

• ajillity81
• 4 years ago

• Wedding: October 2013

plan a dinner or 2 and 1 activty to make them happy.  or explain this is your honeymoon and you want to spend all of it alone with your husband.

• Robyn0214
• 4 years ago

• Wedding: November 2009 - New York, NY

The activities you already planned including your family are enough.  Tell your parents you will spend the rest of your stay alone with your husband, as this will be your “honeymoon time”.  They should understand.

• MrsYoshida
• 4 years ago

• Wedding: June 2014 - Baby #2 due Sep 2017

SprinkleDonut:  I’ve been living abroad for 5 years and hadn’t seen my family in 18 months. I spent 2 days and an evening with them out of the week, not including the wedding. My family kept saying ‘we know this is a stressful time and you don’t need to spend the whole time with us’! Assuming you see your family (including parents) more often than every 18 months, I don’t think you’re obligated to spend extra time with then, but at least a dinner would be appreciated, I’m sure 🙂 

• Penang1885
• 4 years ago

• Wedding: July 2014

For our destination wedding (also 6 days), we organised 3 events before the wedding (one sightseeing tour, a dinner after the tour, then a lunch) to catch up with family and friends. That left time for last-minute wedding stuff, and also time to catch up in smaller informal groups if we felt the need (eg. bridesmaids and bride, groom and brother, etc.).  After the wedding, we drew a firm line claiming that time as a honeymoon and made no more official plans with anyone. We still did lunch one day with friends, but that was entirely casual and not pre-planned.

DO NOT fill up every moment with plans just to please your family, since it will be busy enough and you will certainly need time to meet with vendors and deal with any last-minute issues. One or two family meal or events prior to the wedding is plenty, and you can adjust according to how you feel when you get there. After the wedding should definitely be private time for you and your new husband. You will both be tired and want some down time and anyone with any concept of etiquette at all shouldn’t hold it against you for taking some time out to do what newlyweds are meant to do on their honeymoon.

• Shkragoldfish
• 4 years ago

• Wedding: July 2014

Stick to the events you already have and tell your family that you want the rest of the time as a mini-moon. We stayed a few days after our domestic destination wedding- we saw my family at breakfast the next morning, but that was it and we didn’t meet up w anybody else after that. It seems like your mom might be hurt at first since she’s assumed youd all do a family vacay but she’ll understand and get over it. 

• prahajess
• 4 years ago

• Wedding: July 2014 - Prague

I’d stick with what you already have planned and maybe meet up with them for a breakfast or dinner on the last day.

• Penang1885
• 4 years ago

• Wedding: July 2014

SprinkleDonut:  Yes, it’s a very good idea to keep it in mind, because it can take up a lot more time than you think! A destination wedding usually means that you have not previously been able to meet up with vendors and properly see the venue, so there’s a lot you will want to check out.

We arrived 4-5 days before the wedding. In those days my fiance and/or I had the following meetings or wedding-related appointments:

1) Went to the venue and saw the hotel events coordinator. She took us to the ceremony location and we discussed things like how the music would be set up, the direction of the chairs, what door I would be entering from, where the flowers would be, and passed on the detail of our day-of-coordinator and other key vendors.

2) Our day-of-coordinator. She had already set up a detailed spreadsheet of the day, but we still had to discuss things like seating charts and precisely how we wanted the tables, place cards and flowers set up, who the ushers were, the entrance and exit music and timings, our confirmed hotel room numbers, where the guestbook would be, and other nitty-gritty last minute stuff.

3) Our officiant. We discussed things like timing, readings, the fact that I was not planning on changing my name, reminders that we wanted an announcement about an ‘unplugged’ ceremony to avoid cameras everywhere, vows, and the details of the bridal party (where they would be sitting/standing, etc). We combined this with a brief wedding rehearsal with our bridal party, ushers and parents. If you want this, be sure to schedule this with the venue in advance because the venue and officiant won’t necessarily be assuming you will want one and could book up with other weddings (happened to us).

4) A salon for a manicure and pedicure with my bridesmaids and friends. I chip any nailpolish I have pretty much instantly, so I wanted to get this done as close to the wedding as possible. This takes at least a couple of hours, so leave yourself some time if you want to do this.

5) Picking up printing for my menus and wedding programs.

6) The photographer. We discussed the schedule of the day, family tensions he might not have been aware of, important pictures to us, and just generally hung out and got to know him better to stave off nervousness.

7) A hair and makeup trial with my makeup artist and my bridesmaids. DEFINITELY DO THIS. It really helped me crystalise exactly what I wanted, and I changed several things for the wedding day.

8) Random last minute shopping runs. Just little things I had forgotten (a box to hold the photobooth props, a calligraphy pen for cards, some photo prints, finding a pretty hanger for the dress, hair spray and setting spray, safety pins, scissors, that kind of thing).

I SHOULD have met with my florist, but decided I wanted an afternoon off instead. This was a mistake, because the flowers ended up not being quite as I wanted (colors weren’t right and the quality could have been better). We did not meet with the DJ, the chef/restaurant, the band, the AV people, etc., but we could have if we had been more anal about things. I also didn’t get my dress steamed or anything like that, which many people have to because it can get crumpled in the garment bag.

So as you can see, the lead up to your wedding is probably going to be pretty crowded!! Don’t overbook with your family or it’s going to be very stressful.

• Everdeen
• 4 years ago

• Wedding: September 2015

Have you specifically told your parents that you are treating this like your honeymoon? If not, they most likely haven’t even thought about the fact that you’ll need some alone time. Just be straight up with your mum and explain to her, day by day, how you envision the week, clearly communicate what it is that you want and I’m sure she’ll have no problem with it.