My fiancé and I have been engaged for several months now with no progress on venue, primarily because a destination wedding is the only option that feels right to us. To give some background, we live in the US but became engaged at the Stourhead Estate in England. Proposal was wonderful, he reserved the Temple of Apollo, there was a dinner set up, and he proposed. While we were there, we talked to the coordinator of the event about the potential of returning for our wedding, and when we looked around at where we were, it seemed perfect. An absolute no-brainer.
Fast forward months now and with all the family involved, it's become almost impossible to see our destination wedding as a possibility. My parents essentially refused to travel at the first mention of it; my mom is afraid of planes and my dad is worried about ear pain from flying. They said they'd only consider taking a boat there, which is totally ridiculous and would take days, as well as a lot of money for them, and they don't WANT to do that. Just that that's the only option they'd consider. My fiancé's side of the family is a little more accommodating - they're willing to fly but didn't sound particularly excited about it. Our parents are not helping to pay for any aspect of the wedding; my parents initially mentioned paying for my dress but any talks of a wedding with them fall flat, as though they are disinterested in the topic altogether. It's overall been very disheartening and while my fiancé and I have scoured our area and our home states for venues - some are OK - they all would feel like settling. Really we want a wedding with the same magical feeling and setting as our engagement, and we're starting to feel like we'll never decide or set a date because we just can't get excited enough about any venues in the USA when we stood at our dream spot for the wedding and figured out exactly where we'd get married and where people would sit.
Sorry for the long post, but I was wondering if anyone has experienced anything similar and what choice you made, or how you handled it? We would just want our immediate family there - fiancé's mom, stepdad, dad, stepmom, and his 2 sisters, and then my parents. We were even going to save money to rent out the entire inn on the property to give everyone a room to stay and make it easy, but it's upsetting to feel like this can't happen at all, and we'll have to pick someplace that feels "good enough". Neither myself or my fiancé are connected "at the hip" with our parents, if that makes sense, but we still would prefer they be there of course. Does anyone have any advice on this situation, or at least has anyone encountered something similar?