Those of you plannning a destination wedding

Blessed1010

My nephew just got engaged and they they'd like to plan a destination wedding.  Is it true that you spend less money when having a destination wedding?

beachbum1285

We are saving tons of money but we're doing things pretty simple so it depends on how extravagant or low key your nephew plans on doing things.

Our example... when we starting planning a wedding in Dallas for 200+ people we were looking at $25,000 to $30,000. HA! Now, in Mexico, we are looking at about $5000 for the entire wedding (dress, tux, flowers, reception, photog, etc.) and the hotel and airfare for a weeks stay.

beachybride10

Destination weddings can be cheaper or more expensive. It really depends on what you want, the location, etc.

One reason some DW are cheaper is because most brides have less guests. If I had a wedding in the states I would 100-150 at my wedding. In Mexico, I'll have 50.

sapphiredaizy

Mine was definitely cheaper! I think we spent about $6000--$7000. If I'd done it at home just the venue I wanted was $6000...that didn't include food, drinks, flowers, cake, dress, photog etc. It was a beautiful venue, but $6000 for nothing more than a place to have the wedding? That's insane!

pinkpinot

A DW can be cheaper but if they are considering a reception at home, the cost could sky rocket as the reception is where a huge chunk of money is spent.  This of course depends on the reception, if they did something simple/casual it would obviously be less.

Our actual wedding for up to 40 people is barely over a grand, this even includes cake & dinner.  Anything extra we want has a price tag but I'm estimating our entire wedding/reception/cake/photog & 10 day honeymoon will probably put us in the 5-6K range.  We looked into a wedding at home and the food & drinks for a reception alone was 6K. 

Islamorada14

DWs aren't necessarily less expensive.  We spent around $18k for our DW with 36 guests.  A huge chunk of our budget was the venue, which was a private estate that we rented for 4 days, but the estate also provided lodging for us and 22 of our guests as well.  We loved having a DW because it allowed us to have several days of events with our closest friends and family.

If we'd had a "home" wedding we could have easily hosted a 100+ person wedding for the same cost or less, however that would just be one day.

angybanez

COming from New York City, weddings are around $40-60K on average. We're hoping to just gove a little over 20K since we do have a possible guest list of 80 (or more). So everything depends on where you're holding it, what package and additions you want, how many guests you're inviting, etc. If you have a resort you have in mind, many in the DR, Jamaica and Mexico have packages starting at less than $1K...but remember if you add more people than the 10 or 25 in the package included, or requests to have a better reception/dinner menu, then additional charges apply for decorations and food.

Best of luck!

ms.n.0906

I see that you are in Chicago--Is your nephew as well?  If this is the case, then yes, a destination wedding is likely cheaper.  I am live in Chicago, and when I started to price out weddings in the city, it would have been a minimum of $150 to $200 a head (plus around 30% tax and service fees), and we would have had about 150 people.  By having a desitnation wedding we cut down our guest list and are spending around $10 - 15k.