Folks with family in 2+ states - how did you decide venue?

ginnybinny17 · September 2016

Like many (most?) people, my SO and I come from two different states. He has a huge family in New England, I have a huge family in the Midwest. Wherever we have our wedding, chances are that either a lot of his family/friends or a lot of mine won't be able to attend.

So, I'm just curious. For people who were/are in a similar situation -- how'd you end up deciding where to have the wedding?

kylexo · September 2016

I'm from NY and he's from MA, so it wasn't as far away. we had it in NY cause we live there and that part of the state is a lot prettier and cheaper than the part of MA his family lives in, plus i have more elderly family members. all out VIPS were able to make it except DHs grandpa who has apparently recently taken on a Howard Hughes type lifestyle.

STARMOON44 · September 2016

Where do you live? Who is paying? Can you meet in between?

lyndausvi · September 2016

There is no one size fits all answer here.

DH and I met and still lived in the islands. His family is from NY, most of mine from DE. With my parents living in another state. It would have been too expensive for our guests to come to the islands, so we decided to have our wedding on a beach in NJ. 3-5 hour drive for the majority of the guests with a good 30% having to fly.

If the bride's parents are paying for the wedding, it's not unusual for couples to pick the bride's home town. Or if the groom's parents are paying the groom's hometown.

Some people pick on or the other based on how big the family is. Makes more sense to have 10 people travel than say 60.

If the couple lives a 3rd location they will pick that location.

Some people pick a neutral destination (like we did).

CharmedPam · September 2016

FI's friends & family live in NY and my family is scattered everywhere, (with me in IL). I decided NY solely for the purpose of having his family there since 80% of them cannot travel. More of my friends and family would travel (albeit more of a burden on them).
I am having a lot of "no's" but quite surprised on the "yes" side of travelers. Give them PLENTY of time to save and plan, and you may be surprised.

edit because at first it looked like I wrote FI and his family live in NY when he does not. He lives in IL too.

ginnybinny17 · September 2016

STARMOON44 said:

Where do you live? Who is paying? Can you meet in between?

We live in DC, and we're paying. We could definitely have the wedding here, in a neutral location, but the way I see it, we might as well have it in either RI or MO. If we have it here, our friends/family will ALL have to travel and pay for hotels, rather than just one side or the other.

ginnybinny17 · September 2016

CharmedPam said:

FI and his friends & family live in NY and my family is scattered everywhere, (with me in IL). I decided NY solely for the purpose of having his family there since 80% of them cannot travel. More of my friends and family would travel (albeit more of a burden on them).
I am having a lot of "no's" but quite surprised on the "yes" side of travelers. Give them PLENTY of time to save and plan, and you may be surprised.

That's funny -- that's almost our exact situation! I'm leaning to New England since I think more of my friends and family will be able to travel. Who knows?

CharmedPam · September 2016

Plus, I kinda love NY and the whole New England area

Not that I researched a whole lot for Chicago 'burbs, but the prices were comparable for ones I found online to that of the Hudson Valley (Chicago burbs, a little cheaper). I love the phrase "your wedding invite is NOT a summons". People can make their own choices. When people tell me how sorry they are they can't go, I relay that back to them. I TOTALLY get why they can't and there's no hard feelings.

OliveOilsMom · September 2016

It depends where you all are, but would somewhere in NY be drivable for most guests?

But overall, I think you just need to weigh the pros and cons of any location you could/would choose. See which location all VIPs can attend and go with that one. It may be that your family is in a better position to travel further, so it would make sense to have the wedding closer to FI's family or vice versa.

missJeanLouise · September 2016

Fh didn't want to get married in his hometown because he was concerned his mother would try to take over the wedding. I wasn't completely opposed to getting married in my hometown (I actually wanted to get married in his) but we know too many people there and would have had a horrible time trying to edit the guest list. We went with option C, getting married where we live now. It is a plane ride (or 14 hour drive) from my hometown and about a 5 hour drive from his. I think we made the right decision for us because it is easier to meet with vendors since they are all local.

Jells2dot0 · September 2016

I eloped! It was just easier on so many levels.

MrsMack10612 · September 2016

We live in MA. Most of our friends and family are New England or East Coast. It never occurred to us to have our wedding anywhere but where we live.

labro · September 2016

The only people local for our wedding were most of our friends and my parents. EVERYONE else traveled in. It was NBD. Nearly all of my out of town family came and a good portion of H's family did too. We sent out Save the Dates around 9 months before the wedding and maybe that made a difference. I didn't even give a second thought to trying to choose a central location because it would have been impossible. We live in a city with an international airport so it made the most sense for people to come to us.

ginnybinny17 · September 2016

labro said:

The only people local for our wedding were most of our friends and my parents. EVERYONE else traveled in. It was NBD. Nearly all of my out of town family came and a good portion of H's family did too. We sent out Save the Dates around 9 months before the wedding and maybe that made a difference. I didn't even give a second thought to trying to choose a central location because it would have been impossible. We live in a city with an international airport so it made the most sense for people to come to us.

Yeah -- I think the ticket in our situation is sending out the Save the Dates nice and early to give everyone a ton of time to make plans if they need to.

We're also thinking of throwing a party (not a ppd! just a gathering!) in whatever hometown we don't end up having the wedding in, so anyone who couldn't make it to the wedding and reception can come say hi and party with us a little bit.

glasgowtolondon · September 2016

I'm from Scotland, my FI is from the north of England, and we both live in London. For us, regardless of where we chose 2/3 of our guests would have to travel. There was no getting around that. We chose to have it in London because it's where our life together is, and it was easier for us to plan locally. To be honest I think we might have had more declines if we'd picked either of our hometowns since London is so much easier to get to than anywhere else in the UK (certainly easier for our guests in the US to fly into). But there is no right or wrong answer here, I guess it depends what type of wedding you want.

[Deleted User] · September 2016

We're having our wedding in my hometown (where we both live, and my immediate family and friends live). All of his family and the majority of his friends will have to travel if they come - but we're in a large tourist-centric city with an international airport and plenty of options for accommodation. We sent STDs to everyone who would have to travel approximately 9 months in advance. Even with that much notice, a few extended relatives on both sides have booked vacations already and said they wouldn't be able to make the wedding. That's how it goes, NBD.

SP29 · September 2016

(S)he who pays, gets a say.
Number of guests traveling one way versus the other.
Ease of traveling for guests (seniors vs. younger adults, anyone with a disability)
Cost of the locations

Some people choose one family location over the other, some choose where the couple lives, some choose a neutral place in the middle.

DH and I lived a few provinces away from our families (they all pretty much live in the same area). We got married in our hometown. Fewer guests would require travel and hotel, and it was easier for our friends to fly into our hometown versus our grandparents flying to where we lived.

morewineplease · September 2016

My family is all in RI, and his is scattered all over, so we decided to do a destination. Everyone would have to travel, unless we did it in RI. However, he did not want 75% of the guest to be from my side, so this not having it in RI was one of his "hills" and I understood.

WinstonsGirl · September 2016

Me and DH in Alberta, his parents in Quebec, rest of the family is in Chile.

We would have stayed in Alberta, since our friends and my family is here. We decided instead to go to Hawaii cos we wanted a smaller wedding, we both love Hawaii, and DH really wanted to get married outside but was worried about rain. Funnily enough, it rained on our wedding day in Hawaii (morning and late evening once we were finished). Once our parents/siblings were ok with Hawaii, our guests didn't figure into our decision.

lnixon8 · September 2016

Look at venues in all 3 places. I'm not too familiar with the other two but I can only assume that there has to be more affordable places to get married than DC.

drid · September 2016

FI and I live in Alberta, most of our families are in Ontario and Quebec. We figured that either way about half of our guests would be travelling, and other than family still being there, we don't have a ton of love for our hometown...so we decided to get married in Banff, AB which is about 3 hours away from where we currently live. A lot of our families haven't been to the mountains before, so we decided to bring them somewhere beautiful instead of the boring prairies.

CharmedPam · September 2016

drid said:

FI and I live in Alberta, most of our families are in Ontario and Quebec. We figured that either way about half of our guests would be travelling, and other than family still being there, we don't have a ton of love for our hometown...so we decided to get married in Banff, AB which is about 3 hours away from where we currently live. A lot of our families haven't been to the mountains before, so we decided to bring them somewhere beautiful instead of the boring prairies.

ooohyeah, I think you delivered

julieanne912 · September 2016

My parents are in CA, H's are in Wyoming. Extended family for me are all over the place, his are still mostly in WY. We live in CO, so we had the wedding here in CO as it was convenient for us of course, but also convenient for travelers since his family could drive and mine could fly into DIA.

What's interesting is, even though his family is technically closer, more of mine showed up. SIL told me their family only really shows up for funerals, not so much for weddings. Sad really but whatever.

CharmedPam · September 2016

julieanne912 said:

My parents are in CA, H's are in Wyoming. Extended family for me are all over the place, his are still mostly in WY. We live in CO, so we had the wedding here in CO as it was convenient for us of course, but also convenient for travelers since his family could drive and mine could fly into DIA.

What's interesting is, even though his family is technically closer, more of mine showed up. SIL told me their family only really shows up for funerals, not so much for weddings. Sad really but whatever.

Same boat, and honestly - I think more of my side will show up, I'm kinda floored at my "yeses" so far, family and friends. It will be almost even which is nice.

MeetTheLaras · September 2016

I'm from the Midwest, and my FI is from NJ. We also have quite a few friends and family dispersed throughout the states, and even in some other countries.

I am a psycho and thought I could handle planning the wedding completely by myself (aka: I didn't want to hire a planner). This meant that I needed to be close to everything (vendors, venues, etc.). So we selected NJ, since we are currently living here. Had we had the budget/desire to have a planner, we may have made a different choice. I'm not really sure.

ahoywedding · September 2016

I'm from the Midwest but my family is kind of all over. FI grew up in the South and his family is also in a few states. We decided to have the wedding where we live (NC), since no matter where we had it people would have to travel and it seemed easier (to me) to not plan a wedding from several states away. Plus, we're about equidistant from the mountains and the ocean and figure it will be a pretty cool vacation for most people (or that's what they're telling us anyway!). We also plan to have a "meet the newlyweds" thing at my parents' house over the summer in case any family isn't able to travel down. No PPD, probably just a cookout and lawn games or something. We did also communicate our plans early to our extended family and let them know the wedding would be in NC. I gave my parents the OK to tell their family the date before we sent save the dates, but we also sent them early enough to give people a good chance to plan/save money/etc.

bumpjanie · September 2016

I have a similar situation, FI is from New England and I'm from the midwest. I debated having our wedding in my hometown because 1. I love it there, and 2. It would have been significantly cheaper than where we live now (in New England) but ultimately decided to have it in New England. The major advantage is that it's much easier to plan things where you live (or close to where you live). The disadvantage is that a lot of my friends and family from home declined, many of them have kids and traveling can be tough & expensive. In the end I'm still happy with my decision, either way our guest list is still our family and friends, I don't like to look at it as "my side" or "his side". I had a friend I grew up with that was living in NY and decided to have her wedding back in the midwest and she definitely expressed frustration with having to fly home to make decisions and plan, etc. It's not easy. Nonetheless, where there is a will there is a way. I agree with other posters, not a one-size-fits-all answer. I would say consider budget and what you want, and leave the traveling guest factor out of it.

Knottie1474563328 · September 2016

My FI's family is from CO and mine is from NC. We've both been married before, my family was at my wedding, his was not (destination wedding). I wanted to please everyone so we were originally trying to have a wedding out in CO....but pre-planning alone was stressing me out since I'm not super familiar with the area. We decided to have a local wedding where we live, FL, and whomever can attend, will attend. We've given plenty of notice for traveling plans (5 months out and just sent Save the Dates). Those who absolutely want to be part of our wedding, will make every effort to come. We both agreed to live with that.

Heffalump · September 2016

ahoywedding said:

I'm from the Midwest but my family is kind of all over. FI grew up in the South and his family is also in a few states. We decided to have the wedding where we live (NC), since no matter where we had it people would have to travel and it seemed easier (to me) to not plan a wedding from several states away.

That was pretty much our exact situation, and we took the same approach. It worked well for us.

Folks with family in 2+ states - how did you decide venue?

Re: Folks with family in 2+ states - how did you decide venue?

Choose Another Board

Search Boards