Past Destination Brides.

MissDuke2012

My FI and I have been considering moving up our wedding date 2 or 3 months and getting married on the beach. The beach we would want to get married on is roughly 3 hours away. Its not a very big beach and has 4 maybe 5 hotels and hundreds of rental houses.

My questions for you are:

1. Did you save any money by doing this?
2. How did it affect your guest list? (how many did you invite/how many came)
3. Was it extremely hard to plan?
4. What all did you rent?

Islamorada14

1.  Because we rented beach houses, I wouldn't necessarily say we saved money by having a DW, but it was an excellent value.  It allowed us to have 4 days of events.  We were able to provide lodging for immediate family and bridal party in the houses.  And I think we saved money on the reception by bringing in a private caterer and we provided the alcohol ourselves (compared to paying resort/hotel food & beverage prices).

2.  Our family/friends are REALLY spread out all around the US (and also Sweden), so no matter where we held the wedding, 95% of our guests would have to travel. Having a wedding where we currently live was never a consideration.  We invited about 70 guests to our Florida Keys DW and around 40 were able to attend.  

3.  I didn't find planning a DW difficult, but it did require a lot of time researching potential locatons/vendors.  We were also very lucky to find a full service caterer who could provide honest planning advice and venue recommendations.

4.  For an additional flat fee, our caterer provided all of the rentals we needed (tables, chairs, linens, flatware, stemware, outdoor lighting etc.) including setup and breakdown for both the ceremony and reception.  I was extremely happy we didn't need to go through a separate rental company for those things.  Our florist also allowed us to rent non-floral decor (glass hurricane lamps, candles, and flower vases for the table centerpieces) and that was extremely affordable compared to buying and transporting those items ourselves.

bellebride116

1. Did you save any money by doing this? 

Yes & No. If we had the wedding here, more people would have come and we would have spent more. However, we imagined how much we would have spent if we had the wedding here and just applied it to our wedding down there. We also had to pay for travel, etc. So I think we probably evened out? 

2. How did it affect your guest list? (how many did you invite/how many came)

We still invited everyone we would have if we had a local wedding {about 200}, just to include everyone. We had around 80 people come. 

3. Was it extremely hard to plan?

No, we used a lot of resources {such as the knot} to help plan. We also made a trip there to meet with some vendors in person.

4. What all did you rent?

I don't think we rented too much. We rented a lot of decor through our florist, crystal draping, fabric draping, lighting, etc.