I Do or I Do Not – Should You Have a Destination Wedding?

One of the first questions I get about our wedding is why we chose to have it in Cabo, and why we wanted a destination wedding in general. We chose Cabo because there were direct flights from New York, it was a bit different and more romantic than Cancun, and because the resort answered my email quickly and they had our requested weekend available. Our initial choice was Ixtapa, on the Pacific coast of Mexico, but the resort ghosted me for a month after our initial 2 emails.

As for why we chose to have a destination wedding, the honest answer is that we didn’t necessarily want a destination wedding, and Chris was really on the fence. But after weighing the pros and cons, it seemed like the only logical choice and, as Chris will get used to in our marriage, I was right. He even admitted it! If you are considering a destination wedding, my advice would be: DO IT. You’ll see from the grossly uneven list below that it is the correct choice.

Pros:

Why Not?: At this point in my life (mid-30’s – yikes!), almost everyone has moved away from “home.” That means every wedding is a “destination” wedding in terms of having to pay for a flight and a hotel. So why not make it a vacation, too? I have only been to one wedding in my life that did not require a hotel stay, and a handful that didn’t require a flight. And I have been to a LOT of weddings. The flight + hotel for my wedding in Cabo was honestly less expensive than many other weddings I have attended in Cleveland, Bozeman, and Las Vegas. And all of the food and drinks and entertainment were included! There were things to do during the day, like aqua aerobics, trivia in the pool, and line dancing on beach, and there were activities at night like live music, and foam parties at the club. And of course, lots of drinking.

Budget: Destination weddings are CHEAP! Relative to having a wedding in the United States, especially in a city, a destination wedding is a fraction of the cost. Labor is cheaper in Mexico, but also, having everything in one place meant we did not need to think about bringing in vendors like catering, table and chairs rentals, and of course the dreaded transportation costs. None of that was needed and it was all on-site.

Wedding Planner Included: This is related to budget, but when we were thinking about planning a wedding, it was extremely overwhelming. We both have full time jobs and adding a new title of “party planner” to my resume was not something I had the energy to do. Also, since we knew we were going to get married outside of New York City, we would need help finding vendors in that place and a wedding planner would need to make those connections for us. For that reason, we knew we would need a wedding planner, and not just a day-of coordinator. We realized we were going to be spending ~$8K-$10K on a planner at a minimum. At all-inclusive resorts, the planner is part of the package.

Where do we want to get married?: Most couples nowadays meet online, or meet in a city that is neither of their hometowns. Historically, a wedding takes place where the bride grew up, but my parents don’t live where I grew up anymore and I have no more ties to Florida, nor would we have anywhere to stay while we looked at venues. Chris and I didn’t have a single place in common besides New York City, where venues start at $15,000 just for the space. Since we didn’t have a place we really wanted to get married anyway, we decided to pick somewhere beautiful.

Scenery: When I was planning our wedding, I said to my friends that we were not paying for any extras they offered, like special plates or tablecloths or paper lantern lighting. I joked and said the beach was the decoration, but you know what? It was. It was GORGEOUS. I showed my friends the photo below and one of them said it looked fake, another said it looked like a magazine. The background of every photo is stunning. At zero additional cost!

They know their sh*t: Perhaps that wasn’t the most eloquent wording but it’s true. These resorts produce weddings like a well-oiled machine. They know what they are doing because they do it every day. Things run smoothly, on time, flowers are where they are supposed to be, there are contingency plans in place, and it is easy. We planned our entire wedding with about 30 emails back and forth. We booked our florist by email (the one they recommended) and we used their DJ. We filled out a music questionnaire by email. We filled out our cake order online. Everything was done in a few quick spreadsheets and it came to life seamlessly. We met with the wedding planner 2 days before the wedding and reviewed all of the details. She assured us she knew what she was doing, and it went perfectly. Also, there’s a huge benefit to working with vendors who know the venue like the back of their hand. Our photographer knew every spot in the resort where photos would look amazing. The one of me below was the outside of the Indian restaurant. And that random window and hallway shot… none of those could have been done without a skilled photographer who knew the space. There was even a wedding 2 hours after us, and we met the other couple in the pool the day before. We ran into them while we were both taking photos and snapped one with them. It was so fun to have another couple experiencing it with us.

Spending quality time with everyone: This is by far the biggest positive of having a destination wedding. My main gripe with spending a lot of money to travel to weddings is when I don’t even get to see the couple. This has happened to me a few times, where I fly somewhere, get a hotel room, and I’m not even in the bridal party so I don’t go to the rehearsal dinner. I just show up at the wedding, see the couple when they walk around to greet each table, and I also dance with them on the dance floor for 5-10 minutes. Then I fly home and send a gift. It’s the worst and I always go home feeling like I wasted my money and time. When you have a destination wedding, it’s like going on a family reunion/friends vacation. You have DAYS to hang out with everyone at the pool, have breakfast and coffee, do shots at the foam party, and pretend to do aqua aerobics while sipping pina coladas. The best part is there is zero pressure to chat with everyone at the reception and greet each table, because you’ve already been spending days with them. It’s a win-win, and you can go home feeling like you had quality time with each of your guests. I left Mexico feeling closer to the people I already knew, and feeling like I forged real relationships with those I had just met.

Cons:

I warned you up top that there are very few negatives to having a destination wedding, but after racking my brain, I could only think of 4, and you will see below that I don’t even truly believe all of them.

1. Not everyone will be able to attend: If you want a huge wedding with everyone in your family in attendance, then you should not have a destination wedding. Having a wedding outside of the country does require a passport, so you will be cutting out some of your guest list by having a wedding abroad. However, as I mentioned above, every wedding will have a cost for guests unless you live in the same place where you grew up, so there will always be some people who cannot attend.
2. You do not want your guests to spend a lot of money: Again, I don’t truly believe this is possible and there are ways around this. For example, we told our guests they did not need to give gifts because we knew they were spending a lot of money to come. We also paid for some of our close family’s hotel rooms if we knew they couldn’t otherwise afford to come. Personally, the Cabo wedding was not even the most expensive one I went to this year!
3. You have a family with food issues/special requirements: All-inclusive resorts are nice because they have unlimited food available at all times. They also usually have a lot of different kinds of food. But if you have family with food requirements, like if they are vegetarian, vegan, kosher, etc, it may be difficult for them to find food. For a normal wedding, you only need to worry about one meal for them. At a destination wedding, you have DAYS of meals and with limited options, it can be repetitive and non-nutritious for those family members.
4. You want a SUPER UNIQUE wedding: It’s true, most resorts are “wedding machines.” This means there will be many other brides and grooms out there who had a similar experience to you. As I mentioned, there was another couple who got married on the same exact day as us! However, this also means that things are well-planned and run smoothly. Also, if I’m honest, I’ve been to around 30 weddings and I’m sure the couple always thinks they are unique – they are not. A wedding is a wedding. It may be an expensive wedding, but it will not be as different as you think it is. Sure, there’s an ice sculpture or a chuppah draped in flowers, but at the end of the day, it’s a party.

As you can see, I think the pros extremely outweigh the cons, but I’m interested to hear your thoughts. Have you been to a destination wedding? Do you think it was better or worse than a regular wedding? Did it cost you more money?