Wedding Etiquette Forum

Destination Wedding Etiquette

Our "destination" wedding will have approx. 120 guests.

About 80 will be flying in, 20 will be driving a few hours and the rest live locally.

What will guests expect? I would love to do a welcome dinner  and give guests welcome bags, and have a Sunday brunch  but we can't do it all with such a large turn out.

Any advice as to what we can do to welcome guests and show our appreciation for all their efforts to come without breaking the bank?


Re: Destination Wedding Etiquette

  • I don't really know what guests 'expect' with a DW, but we hosted a Welcome Dinner the Friday before the wedding - we had about 70 people, about 45 came to the dinner.  120 is  A LOT to host for a welcome dinner, IMO.  Unless you have a location where you can do something casual like a BBQ or something.
    We decided against the Sunday brunch since we figured everyone would 1.  be sick of us and 2.  want to do their own thing.  We saw a few people on Sunday, but people were kinda scattered about.  
    We did do welcome bags, I had a lot of fun putting those together.  
    Photobucket
  • If you can't do a welcome dinner, can you do a welcome cocktail party after dinner?  Just a few drinks starting late after people have had dinner?  

    I don't think anyone really cares about welcome bags.  I would cut that before anything else.  
  • I had a DW with about 140 people (2/3 drove, 1/3 flew, not one person lived there).   We had rented a beach home and had an open house the night before as a welcome.  We had heavy apps and open bar (we provided all the booze), it was causal and people just came and went as they pleased, but at one point about 100 people were there.   It was a lot of fun and people really appreciated it .   We found a lot of guests had to leave early the next day, so it seems like a waste to try for a day after.  Plus we knew we could commit to socializing the night before, but we did not want to make concrete plans the morning after our wedding.

    Working at a location that sees a lot of DW I say DW need to step it up a bit.   I would do the welcome reception over a breakfast (it does not have to be dinner, it can just be an 1.5-2.5 hour cocktail party with apps).   If you can to both, great, but not necessary.








    What differentiates an average host and a great host is anticipating unexpressed needs and wants of their guests.  Just because the want/need is not expressed, doesn't mean it wouldn't be appreciated. 
  • Aww I wanna go back to my wedding weekend, it was so much fun.
    Photobucket
  • I'm doing a welcome cocktail party and welcome bags-- I love welcome bags, personally. We chose the cocktail (it starts at 8:30) because we figured that way guests who were travelling the Friday and were driving distance could still possibly make it; and because we didn't want to have a second reception. We're serving heavy apps though (like, we have a slider station and passed hors d'oerves and a couple of other stations, including dessert for those who did eat dinner) so if people haven't had dinner, they won't be drinking on an empty stomach!
    Baby Birthday Ticker Ticker
  • We had 80 guests all fly in... I feel like since it was a DW and everyone was paying to come we should feed them more then just at the wedding.... we did a welcome party on Friday and then a breakfast on Sunday... 

    Like pp's said... try to do something where everyone can be invited since everyone is traveling but do only maybe a cocktail welcome or something small. 

    Not sure where you are having your DW or what not... we had ours at a hotel and since we utilized the hotel for EVERY wedding event we got a huge break on a lot of things... ie, we hosted a huge welcome dessert party but the hospitality suite we held it in was given to us by the hotel since we were spending so much there already. 

  • We invited all our OOT guests to our RD, because my in-laws were paying for it and that was their decision. For the morning after, we had bagels, fruit, coffee and juice in our hotel room. It was a little over $100 for that stuff. I also made welcome bags with things from the dollar store (trail mix, candy, hot cocoa mix, sunscreen, lip balm).
    my read shelf:
    Meredith's book recommendations, liked quotes, book clubs, book trivia, book lists (read shelf)
    40/112

    Photobucket
This discussion has been closed.
Choose Another Board
Search Boards