Some context first:
Second wedding for me, first for him.
Between us we, have 4 kids.
We're thinking September, out of town.
I've planned my first wedding, and have helped plan others... but I've not done out of town/destination, so I'm trying to think about everything that needs to get done if we want to have a small ceremony/reception, and I'm stressing a little about things I may have missed.
Other than the obvious... what is there to consider for out of town weddings? Do I need to give extra notice to people, given the additional cost if they choose to attend? What about kids? They'll be welcome, but what's the right way to deal with kids at an out of town wedding?
How do you deal with venues/vendors if you're not on site? It's a very small town... so there's not much in terms of pictures/websites/online research...
Re: planning
My father isn't likely to, unless I pay for his travel and accommodations... he's not very financially stable.
I have a few select family members (maybe 6-8?) that may decide to travel, but otherwise I think "my side" will be pretty sparse.
We do have a few close friends, here in town, that know we're planning an OOT wedding and have started putting money aside to go.
Unless you're talking about your FI's 4 year old in which case he still needs to talk to mom.
Re: research- ask local people? You may wind up only having one option and just having to take what you get.
Not much different from planning any wedding really.
We'd be ok with a reception of sorts in FI's old family home, though, if the venues aren't suitable.
Restaurants are a good option for a small reception. My mother's funeral was in a very small town, and the church was not available after the graveside service. (She wasn't really a Christian, anyway.) We wound up at a casual pizza and chicken restaurant. They had a private room. It was really very nice!
Think outside the box. There are lots of options out there.
How many people are you inviting to the the wedding? A reception at a restaurant could work really well if your guest list is small enough.
The wedding will be in FI's hometown, his family will not need to travel, but our friends and my family will.
Our guest list is fairly small, approximately 30.
His immediate family (siblings and their kids, his parents are deceased)
My immediate family (siblings and their kids, my parents)
A few of our closets friends
With this list, we'd only need half a dozen rooms or so, accommodations won't be a problem.
I would give your OOT guest as much notice as you can so they can make arrangements, with a small guest list you probably won't need a room block but it might help to have names of the closest hotels. As for child care, you don't need to do anything, but if you know of reputable sitters in the area (with references in possible) having some names and recommendations might help out guests with children.
Other than that there's not much difference in town v OOT; some vendors might be harder to work with, we limited our choices to ones we could easily check out online (but we were married in a fairly large city) and guests that are traveling may have more questions, but it's pretty much the same thing.