Just Engaged! Wedding Location?

Knottie6434853 · January 2015

Hello! My first post here at the knot! I got engaged on Christmas Eve. Does anybody else find it amazing how everybody's response is, "When is the wedding date?" Give me time people! LOL

So before picking a date, we need to decide where to get married! My fiance wants me to have the wedding I want and he is happy with whatever and wherever I want it. He and I live in Colorado. I have lived in Colorado for 10 years. I am originally from Wisconsin and my family is still there (my family is very small).

So how did you all decide where to get married? I don't want a fancy church wedding or anything formal. I'm tossing around the following ideas:

1. Local wedding here in Colorado. Maybe a barn, mountains, or rustic setting. It would be simple with maybe a bbq reception.

2. Wedding in Wisconsin. This would mean that all of his family and our friends would need to travel to attend. I really don't have many frirends left back in Wisconsin and only a few family members that would attend.

3. Las Vegas...not sure I'm too keen on this one. Then we could have a small reception in Colorado and/or Wisconsin.

4. Destination wedding - I think this would be my ideal wedding. Somewhere in the Caribbean on the beach. Close friends and family could come if they choose. Really, I only care about my sister, his sisters, and parents attending. Anybody else would be a bonus. And then we could do a small reception back in Colorado and or Wisconsin. I guess I'm concerned about cost and costs to family members to travel.

So, how did you decide where to marry? Especially if you are from a different state than you currently live in? How did family and friends react to a destination wedding? Did you do a reception in your home state?

climbingsingle · January 2015

Deciding ours was pretty easy. We both still live in the state we grew up in, as do most of our friends. We chose a venue about an hour away from where we live. The plus side of our venue is that it's also a resort, so we blocked out rooms for our guests. Once they checked in, they didn't have to do any traveling.

My parents had to travel from PA. My husband's mom had to travel from FL. My FIL also lives in Florida, but he was too sick to travel up to NY for the wedding.

I originally wanted a destination wedding, but honestly, I knew it would be too much of a financial burden on my family members and friends.

If you do decide to get married out of the country, make sure you're familiar with all of their laws for getting married there.

vulpiepop · January 2015

Deciding ours wasn't too easy. Most of my friends are in NC where I went to college and it would be easier for my parents to attend if it was in NC, but I moved after the graduation ceremony (shortly after getting engaged) to be with FI all the way in CA.

FI's immediate family and a couple family friends are in CA, and I had made a few closer acquaintances before moving there (in college, I was required to have a mentor in my career path and the one I found happened to be in the same area as FI which lead to an internship). Most of FI's family is in another state though and my parents in another, so we had to decide between 4 different states!

In the end, what made us come to our decision was where we are located already. Having a wedding in another state would mean that at least 1 of us would have to fly over there to look at venues and vendors and then it'd be long distance communications with the vendors from then on.

While I would have loved to have our wedding in NC because all of my friends are there, it'd be easier for my parents to attend as they could drive rather than take a flight, and it'd be cheaper, we felt the logistics would be hell to coordinate from the other side of the country. Now that we're getting pretty close to our wedding, I feel like we made the right decision as we had to come in for tastings, design our cake, meet our officiants, start on decorations, and schedule our rehearsal and our rehearsal dinners.

lovemesomemonster · January 2015

I am from Oregon, went to Boise State where I met the man, and all of his family is there. My family is mostly back in Oregon and much larger than his. We decided on Oregon because most of my cousins have small kids and the cost and logistics of travel would be terrible for them, his family there aren't many small kids and most of them can afford to travel (not to mention they farm so getting time off in the winter is not an issue). We also live in Coeur d'Alene Idaho (7hrs north of Boise) so I'm not really local to any of them, both would be planned at a distance! Good luck!

brideiguess · January 2015

This can be a tough question! My FI and I have made a tentative decision but our wedding is still far away. We have a ton of theoretical options to consider:

State 1 - where his family and HS friends are

State 2 - where I grew up and have family and HS friends

State 3 - my family's farm, where my parents got married

State 4 - where we met and went to college together, and where many of our mutual friends live

MA - where we live now, and also have mutual friends

I'd really love to have it at the family farm for sentimental reasons, but I have exactly one family member who lives there now. It's in the middle of nowhere, so it would be hard for other guests to get to. We would have to either rent tents/portapotties/etc, or limit the ceremony and reception to immediate family only, since the house isn't big enough to have 50 people party or sleep there.

We will probably end up having it somewhere in Massachusetts. We figure that no matter where we have this wedding, 80% of the guests are going to be traveling long distances to get there, so we might as well plan it locally to us. A good chunk of our friends have some ties to the area anyway, and being near a major airport makes it somewhat easier for people to come in from afar.

It sucks in a way because everything is more expensive in MA. A venue of the sort we're looking for would probably be much cheaper in my hometown or his. But the cost and inconveince of trying to plan everything from afar (or in a few frenzied trips homeward) would probably outweigh the benefits.

AuroraRose41 · January 2015

My FI and I only had to decide between two states fortunately, but it still was a difficult decision. We both grew up in Upstate NY, but now both live in CA. We ultimately decided that while it would be much cheaper to do it here in CA (because of a much smaller guest list), we decided that we wanted to make it convenient for all of our friends and family to attend and decided to do it in NY. We booked a venue while we were back there visiting for the holidays and all of the vendors I have so far have been more than accommodating with email, phone calls, and even Skype!

AddieCake · January 2015

My family is from Illinois, and my husband's family is from Florida. We lived in Texas when we got married, so we got married in Texas.

redheadedjen · January 2015

I just got engaged at Christmas. He wanted me to pick out the ring and then officially asked me on Christmas. I am still waiting for the ring to be sized. I am a little overwhelmed at it all. Most of my friends are like, when you trying cakes or when will you look for a dress? I do not even have a date yet.

JennyColada · January 2015

We (read: I) threw out a few ideas, but ultimately the choice was easy: I didn't really have a huge preference, but DH is really close with some people in Napa who own a couple of restaurants. So for him, having our wedding there felt like we were having it with an extension of our family.

Think about what places and locations are meaningful to you. Not saying that this can't be somewhere you've never been, but simply that you don't havd to havd it locally just because you love there. Convenience isn't always the most important factor (but it is A factor).

Knottie34286362 · January 2015

My family lives in southeast Michigan while his family lives in Northeast Michigan. We decided to have it in the middle of Michigan and make a weekend out of it. Whoever shows up, shows up. We plan to do save the dates 9 months ahead of time, formal invitations 8 weeks ahead, giving our guests plenty of time to plan and make arrangements.

Just Engaged! Wedding Location?

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