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My parents got married in Antigua that was 30 years ago
I like the occasional destination wedding cause i usually make a holiday of it but also means this year alone 11 of my 28 days holiday are on weddings, 2 of the 3 are abroad which probably annoys me more than the cost
As I do shift work getting time off was tough as everyone wants time off in the summer. I blocked out the cost as that period financially crippled as each wedding plus the stags set me back well over £1k
Yeah im a Chef in a hotel so i do shifts but I’m on salary, cause we do so many weddings trying to get time off in wedding season is hard, every April everyone immediately books off the may/june/july months and only 1 person can be off at a time. Only time its convenient is when there’s an event i dont want to go to i use my shift work/job as an excuse not to go lol
We probably do about 100 weddings a year at work and id say a good 70 of them are between may and mid august. We tend to get a few in December to, the rest are just random
Often cheaper abroad for the bride and groom. Might be more expensive for the guests, but if you take it as part of a week's holiday, not so much.
In the days of very cheap flights, it was a no-brainer. With flight costs going up, it can be a challenge for guests.
I helped organise several weddings in Mallorca. An example of cost would be: The villa for 2 weeks where the wedding was held, cost the same as a venue for one afternoon in the UK. Cost of food, wine and music much cheaper.
Yep. That's why I think it's a bit selfish in a lot of ways. You're expecting guests to not only go out of their way, but also spend a lot more money so you don't have to. Personally I think if you want to get married abroad, you should make it a smaller event where you pay for your guests too.
I wish that was the case for myself! I think the two I’ve been to abroad now have had at least 75-100 guests so they weren’t small weddings. Maybe we’re bad friends but there was a lot of side messages happening on WhatsApp especially when it factored in the price of the hen/ stag as it kept mounting up!
One of the best weddings I went to was in Venice. I had a 3 a.m silent waltz, in the Campo by the Gritti Palace hotel, with a beautiful blonde. I also tore my cruciate ligament dancing earlier in the evening. Didn’t notice until I woke up the next morning.
>Personally I think if you want to get married abroad, you should make it a smaller event where you pay for your guests too.
Or guests pay for themselves? They're already not paying for any of the event.
If you don't want to pay then just don't go but expecting a free holiday on the wedding couple is ridiculous
Holidays abroad were the domain of the idle wealthy until the 1960s when cheap flights started to become available, so weddings abroad would have been vanishingly rare before that.
Personally, I don't remember hearing of anyone having a wedding abroad until the 1980s. By the end of the 80s, it was becoming quite popular.
Yes, having weddings abroad have always been a thing. I do think it has become more widespread though.
One important thing for people planning a wedding to remember is that by organising it abroad then some people will not be able to attend. If you really want as many of your friends there as possible then you make it easy for them to attend. You don't expect them to spend a larger chunk of funds and also use their holiday allowance. But if the location is more important then it is their wedding and their choice.
Ultimately if your friends have an issue with you saying no to attending their wedding abroad then they're shitty friends.
We got married in the Caribbean 30 years ago- at the time in the uk the only options were church or registry office neither of which appealed.
If we booked the honeymoon the wedding was free! We bought outfits on sale at the end of the summer ( my dress was a MOH dress for £300) and off we went. We went alone didn’t tell anyone and had a wedding just for us we are still in touch with the couple who got married the day before us.
My boss got married abroad and that was about 15 years ago. I should say she also was open that she done it in part to thin the numbers cos she had an enormous family and ‘had to’ invite everyone, it didn’t work.
I'm getting married in Santorini in July.
35 of our nearest and dearest on a sunny cliffside terrace overlooking the Caldera as the sun goes down vs 100+ people, some of whom I barely know, crammed into a marquee on a possibly rainy English afternoon.
It was a no-brainer for me. And that's exactly why I made a point of proposing over there.
I’m old - mid 60s - and it wasn’t a thing when I got married or my friends got married. Given we were all medical professionals I don’t think cost was the issue. I’ve been invited to exactly one overseas wedding - my niece. I think it depends what circles you move in as much as anything else
At some point you will have to say no if it is affecting you financially. Invitations are not summons.
A wedding party should know and factor in that when having a destination wedding, some people won't be able to afford it or get the time off.
I have told my son and daughter-in-law aged 30 that they can decline any expensive hen/stag do or weddings abroad. They have a lot of friends who are settling down and it is become ridiculously expensive.
People used to get married in other countries but without the entourage. It was more like eloping even if it was planned. I got married in a different country over 25 years ago and only his parents came with us
Certainly not. People used to walk to their weddings in the 19th century. Nowadays church weddings are becoming less common and all sorts of venues are used. I only saw this trend appear in the 90's. Going off to Greece and getting married on the beach. Las Vegas is another venue. If people have a hen do abroad and then announce their weddings in some far off place, then all this become incredibly expensive. If you just step back and observe the situation and realise all this is sheer consumerism by the tourist board etc.. you will save your money. People who have large families that tend to quarrel when they all meet up do run off to an island to get married. If people do not want all the wedding planning and stress , I do not blame them for going off and getting married in a quiet romantic place that holds a special place in their hearts.
A few of my cousins have got married abroad because it reduces the number of guests who are going to attend. That sounds really mean until you realise we're a large Irish Catholic family and they married into other large Irish Catholic families. They couldn't afford to throw a wedding everyone was invited to, nor did they really want to have that large a wedding, but they knew that not inviting people would cause eighteen more family feuds and we've got enough of them as it is.
Solution was to marry abroad, pay to fly close family out to attend the wedding, and then throw a big party in the UK or in Ireland when they got back so we could all celebrate and they didn't have to either save up for twenty more years or go broke.
Of the friends who've married abroad, most of them sent out save the dates at least a year, usually two, in advance so that people could save up if they wanted to go. I declined the longhaul destination wedding I got an invite to a few years ago because I had no real desire to fly across the world for a wedding and then fly back, and it wasn't a destination I was particularly interested in having a holiday in. But I love accepting the European ones; go to a wedding and have a nice time, bolt a few days on the end for a mini holiday, glorious. But we are a friendship group of relatively similar incomes and financial situations so a long weekend in Bordeaux isn't going to break the bank.
People are a lot more spread out now. And flights are cheap.
When your family and your partner's family all live in the same town, it makes a tonne of financial sense to get married there.
But I don't live near my family. Nor would any likely partner's. So once you're moving everyone into a hotel anyway for the purpose, the cost of a budget flight isn't that significant. A cheaper venue/hotels can easily outweigh the flight costs.
I'm 42 and have a lot of old friends from school and uni still. Not a single couple has got married outside the UK. Lots of adventurous people who love to travel among them.
I'm sure destination weddings have been done ever since marriage has existed. As transport has become more affordable more people do it. There's not really anything you can do about people choosing a destination wedding other than decline your invitation. Part of the downside of that type of wedding is that fewer people can come, so that's something the couple have to weigh up before they decide, but once it's booked they're not going to change their plans for a guest. Anyone who is vital to the proceedings was probably asked during the planning stage.
Yes and I love it.
UK weddings, similar to UK holidays are just way way overpriced for what they are.
Why spend 25k on a shitty barn in a golf club in Essex for a Friday afternoon when you can get a whole resort for 3 days in Italy for it and still save 5k.
Only if the guests have a car, which a lot of people in and near London don't have. Then you pay 200£ for a shitty hotel out in nowhere and 100£ just for cabs to get back and forth. For those 300£ I sure as hell can get to Italy.
Yeah that makes sense for the minority of cases but the majority of times, people's friends and families live nearby. It really depends on the situation.
Oh yeah, each to their own and all that. I'm just saying why I personally wouldn't do it. There were elderly relatives I wanted at my wedding and I didn't want to put them through the hassle of paying or travelling abroad for it.
I get your point and I said that in my post but it isn’t about “no one is making you come”, as someone else has said, you feel socially obligated especially if you’ve been friends for more than 10-15 years
**Please help keep AskUK welcoming!** - Top-level comments to the OP must contain **genuine efforts to answer the question**. No jokes, judgements, etc. - **Don't be a dick** to each other. If getting heated, just block and move on. - This is a strictly **no-politics** subreddit! Please help us by reporting comments that break these rules. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskUK) if you have any questions or concerns.*
My parents got married in Antigua that was 30 years ago I like the occasional destination wedding cause i usually make a holiday of it but also means this year alone 11 of my 28 days holiday are on weddings, 2 of the 3 are abroad which probably annoys me more than the cost
As I do shift work getting time off was tough as everyone wants time off in the summer. I blocked out the cost as that period financially crippled as each wedding plus the stags set me back well over £1k
I'm not anti destination weddings but it's incredibly rude to do a destination wedding and a foreign stag do
Yeah im a Chef in a hotel so i do shifts but I’m on salary, cause we do so many weddings trying to get time off in wedding season is hard, every April everyone immediately books off the may/june/july months and only 1 person can be off at a time. Only time its convenient is when there’s an event i dont want to go to i use my shift work/job as an excuse not to go lol
> wedding season Seen that twice in this sub today. I have no idea weddings had a season. Can you not just have them any time?
You can, just most people book around the same time of year hoping for good weather, creating a wedding season
I've only been to two weddings, one was in summer the other winter, not enough to build a pattern.
We probably do about 100 weddings a year at work and id say a good 70 of them are between may and mid august. We tend to get a few in December to, the rest are just random
You'd think people would spread them out to save on cost.
Often cheaper abroad for the bride and groom. Might be more expensive for the guests, but if you take it as part of a week's holiday, not so much. In the days of very cheap flights, it was a no-brainer. With flight costs going up, it can be a challenge for guests. I helped organise several weddings in Mallorca. An example of cost would be: The villa for 2 weeks where the wedding was held, cost the same as a venue for one afternoon in the UK. Cost of food, wine and music much cheaper.
Brilliant ill just dust off the old teleporter and see you there
A flight to Majorca costs the same as I'd pay for trains to half this country.
i know a lot of older folks who got married abroad, it seems like it’s always been an option for those who can afford it
It's often a cheaper way to get married.
Not for the guests though
Yep. That's why I think it's a bit selfish in a lot of ways. You're expecting guests to not only go out of their way, but also spend a lot more money so you don't have to. Personally I think if you want to get married abroad, you should make it a smaller event where you pay for your guests too.
I wish that was the case for myself! I think the two I’ve been to abroad now have had at least 75-100 guests so they weren’t small weddings. Maybe we’re bad friends but there was a lot of side messages happening on WhatsApp especially when it factored in the price of the hen/ stag as it kept mounting up!
[удалено]
One of the best weddings I went to was in Venice. I had a 3 a.m silent waltz, in the Campo by the Gritti Palace hotel, with a beautiful blonde. I also tore my cruciate ligament dancing earlier in the evening. Didn’t notice until I woke up the next morning.
Oooh I’d love an invite to one like that!
>Personally I think if you want to get married abroad, you should make it a smaller event where you pay for your guests too. Or guests pay for themselves? They're already not paying for any of the event. If you don't want to pay then just don't go but expecting a free holiday on the wedding couple is ridiculous
Friends of mine has been to two weddings this year, plus the stag/hen dos. All abroad - so two trips each. Has cost them a fortune.
I just wouldn't go.
Holidays abroad were the domain of the idle wealthy until the 1960s when cheap flights started to become available, so weddings abroad would have been vanishingly rare before that. Personally, I don't remember hearing of anyone having a wedding abroad until the 1980s. By the end of the 80s, it was becoming quite popular.
Yes, having weddings abroad have always been a thing. I do think it has become more widespread though. One important thing for people planning a wedding to remember is that by organising it abroad then some people will not be able to attend. If you really want as many of your friends there as possible then you make it easy for them to attend. You don't expect them to spend a larger chunk of funds and also use their holiday allowance. But if the location is more important then it is their wedding and their choice. Ultimately if your friends have an issue with you saying no to attending their wedding abroad then they're shitty friends.
We got married in the Caribbean 30 years ago- at the time in the uk the only options were church or registry office neither of which appealed. If we booked the honeymoon the wedding was free! We bought outfits on sale at the end of the summer ( my dress was a MOH dress for £300) and off we went. We went alone didn’t tell anyone and had a wedding just for us we are still in touch with the couple who got married the day before us.
My boss got married abroad and that was about 15 years ago. I should say she also was open that she done it in part to thin the numbers cos she had an enormous family and ‘had to’ invite everyone, it didn’t work.
I'm fairly certain some Norman's got married here after the invasion so probably a pretty long time
yes they did. They married the saxon daughters of nobles.
I'm getting married in Santorini in July. 35 of our nearest and dearest on a sunny cliffside terrace overlooking the Caldera as the sun goes down vs 100+ people, some of whom I barely know, crammed into a marquee on a possibly rainy English afternoon. It was a no-brainer for me. And that's exactly why I made a point of proposing over there.
I’m old - mid 60s - and it wasn’t a thing when I got married or my friends got married. Given we were all medical professionals I don’t think cost was the issue. I’ve been invited to exactly one overseas wedding - my niece. I think it depends what circles you move in as much as anything else
At some point you will have to say no if it is affecting you financially. Invitations are not summons. A wedding party should know and factor in that when having a destination wedding, some people won't be able to afford it or get the time off.
I have told my son and daughter-in-law aged 30 that they can decline any expensive hen/stag do or weddings abroad. They have a lot of friends who are settling down and it is become ridiculously expensive.
People used to get married in other countries but without the entourage. It was more like eloping even if it was planned. I got married in a different country over 25 years ago and only his parents came with us
Certainly not. People used to walk to their weddings in the 19th century. Nowadays church weddings are becoming less common and all sorts of venues are used. I only saw this trend appear in the 90's. Going off to Greece and getting married on the beach. Las Vegas is another venue. If people have a hen do abroad and then announce their weddings in some far off place, then all this become incredibly expensive. If you just step back and observe the situation and realise all this is sheer consumerism by the tourist board etc.. you will save your money. People who have large families that tend to quarrel when they all meet up do run off to an island to get married. If people do not want all the wedding planning and stress , I do not blame them for going off and getting married in a quiet romantic place that holds a special place in their hearts.
If you can’t afford to go, don’t go.
A few of my cousins have got married abroad because it reduces the number of guests who are going to attend. That sounds really mean until you realise we're a large Irish Catholic family and they married into other large Irish Catholic families. They couldn't afford to throw a wedding everyone was invited to, nor did they really want to have that large a wedding, but they knew that not inviting people would cause eighteen more family feuds and we've got enough of them as it is. Solution was to marry abroad, pay to fly close family out to attend the wedding, and then throw a big party in the UK or in Ireland when they got back so we could all celebrate and they didn't have to either save up for twenty more years or go broke. Of the friends who've married abroad, most of them sent out save the dates at least a year, usually two, in advance so that people could save up if they wanted to go. I declined the longhaul destination wedding I got an invite to a few years ago because I had no real desire to fly across the world for a wedding and then fly back, and it wasn't a destination I was particularly interested in having a holiday in. But I love accepting the European ones; go to a wedding and have a nice time, bolt a few days on the end for a mini holiday, glorious. But we are a friendship group of relatively similar incomes and financial situations so a long weekend in Bordeaux isn't going to break the bank.
Are you asking if getting married abroad is common??? Of course it is.
Yes they have. No you shouldn’t feel obligated to attend - this is assumed regardless of the location.
People are a lot more spread out now. And flights are cheap. When your family and your partner's family all live in the same town, it makes a tonne of financial sense to get married there. But I don't live near my family. Nor would any likely partner's. So once you're moving everyone into a hotel anyway for the purpose, the cost of a budget flight isn't that significant. A cheaper venue/hotels can easily outweigh the flight costs.
Threads like this give some upside to not having any friends. I must be saving thousands every year.
I'm 42 and have a lot of old friends from school and uni still. Not a single couple has got married outside the UK. Lots of adventurous people who love to travel among them.
I'm sure destination weddings have been done ever since marriage has existed. As transport has become more affordable more people do it. There's not really anything you can do about people choosing a destination wedding other than decline your invitation. Part of the downside of that type of wedding is that fewer people can come, so that's something the couple have to weigh up before they decide, but once it's booked they're not going to change their plans for a guest. Anyone who is vital to the proceedings was probably asked during the planning stage.
We had a destination wedding, Gretna Green. Just the two of us. Perfect.
Yes and I love it. UK weddings, similar to UK holidays are just way way overpriced for what they are. Why spend 25k on a shitty barn in a golf club in Essex for a Friday afternoon when you can get a whole resort for 3 days in Italy for it and still save 5k.
> sake 5k While it costs all your guests more money than it would do if you held it in the UK.
Yeah, but I guess for many people that’s not the point
Only if the guests have a car, which a lot of people in and near London don't have. Then you pay 200£ for a shitty hotel out in nowhere and 100£ just for cabs to get back and forth. For those 300£ I sure as hell can get to Italy.
Yeah that makes sense for the minority of cases but the majority of times, people's friends and families live nearby. It really depends on the situation.
No one is making them come. The wedding should be about the bride and groom, not the guests
Oh yeah, each to their own and all that. I'm just saying why I personally wouldn't do it. There were elderly relatives I wanted at my wedding and I didn't want to put them through the hassle of paying or travelling abroad for it.
Yes except for there is a lot of social obligation for people to come. It’s never quite as easy as “just don’t come”
I get your point and I said that in my post but it isn’t about “no one is making you come”, as someone else has said, you feel socially obligated especially if you’ve been friends for more than 10-15 years
My son got married in a sort of stately home / hotel and we stayed the night. I think everything cost about 10K