Destination Wedding Numbers

[patchoulirose]

Fiancé and I are planning on getting married in France where my parents own a house large enough to accommodate the majority of guests. Looking at 50-60 guests. We would not be covering flight costs, though they are cheap to get to France. Is this likely for a destination wedding or should we be looking at a much smaller number for guests?

The venue would be at my parents' house, so costs will be considerably lower, and we would cover every single drink etc. Only cost for guests is flights, and for some a couple of nights accommodation.

I was at a destination wedding this year, every guest paid for their own flights and accommodation, 90 people attended. Be careful with "over inviting". The couple who's wedding I attended assumed more people would decline the invite and ended up barely fitting their guest numbers at the wedding reception!

How many guests could they accommodate properly? As in sharing with partner or one friend only, as opposed to big living room they can all bunk down in together? That's how many you can expect! Unless the cheap flight is to an airport 200 miles away and there's only one per week and it's on a Saturday and your weeding is on Saturday so everyone has to stay two weeks....

Do you genuinely know 50-60 people well enough for them to make the effort? If so crack on

I agree with @Heidi2018. We went away due to the sheer number of people in dh's family and just sort of let people know we'd love it if they came but not to feel any obligation and absolutely loads of people came. It was lovely but a lot more expensive than I was expecting.

Are you accommodating most of the 50-60 guests, or have I read that wrong?

Are you covering all food as well for the whole trip? And by all drinks do you mean all drinks on wedding day, or for the entire trip?

If not it depends how many can afford flights, potentially passports if don’t have one/need new one, food/drink costs, wedding gift, the usual wedding expenses like an outfit.

Also depends on what the flights are like and annual leave.

We have friends who got married in Greece last year and we didn’t attend as they were getting married in April so out of holiday season not as many flights, getting married in a very rural area (beautiful venue), nearest airport nearly 2 hours away and only 1 flight there and back per week which didn’t work with the wedding date as arrival would have been on the same day as the wedding literally landing an hour before so attending meant a 2 week trip. We couldn’t justify 2 weeks of annual leave for the sake of a 1 day wedding. If there’s a few flights a week so people could literally just do 2 days and at a decent price then you could expect more numbers.

Covering all drinks for the entire weekend, can buy in bulk pretty cheap, and yes also all food would be included too. Father is a chef so would do all the food, essentially this would be a DIY wedding, just need to hire servers, DJ etc.

Nearest airport is an hour away with plenty of flights.

At that point then it really just depends on budget, annual leave, and people’s other plans/priorities.

My son had this. He had about 55 people there. They paid for everything on the day but everyone paid for their own flights/ hotel expenses. Some guests made it their holiday and stayed for a week or so, others just for 2 days. Had they had the wedding in the uk , the guests would have been easily over 100. What the destination wedding meant was that only the people who really close came. It was fabulous.

My DD is currently at a “destination” wedding with 46 others from the uk. 10 hour flight and her and DP are making a holiday of it. Wedding party has paid for some accommodation but not flights. You have to know your friends! If they are penniless they won’t come. If they aren’t, they will go. A few might tag on a holiday but it might matter where and when and if they have other plans that year. Only you know your friends. DD is getting married in uk and 200 friends invited.

so your parents house has 50-60 guest rooms?

Would this be for the actual, legal wedding or just a party to celebrate?
I nearly got caught a couple of years ago by an invitation to somewhere in the middle of nowhere in the UK for a "wedding". Would have meant flying and hiring a car, as I wouldn't have had time to drive all the way myself, plus 3 days off work to take account of travel and the fact that the wedding was on a Thursday. Total cost, including travel, loss of earnings (freelancer) and accommodation at the venue was around 3k. It then turned out that the couple was doing the legal bit a week earlier, so this was just a party with some diy kind of "wedding" ceremony, I declined.

why should you pay for their flights?

Who is going to actually see to all these guests. Your father cannot cater to that many people alone. Who will lay tables, serve food and drinks, clear up, wash up, show people to their rooms, deal with problems and all the 100 other tasks? You don't appear to have considered any of the logistics.

Posted too soon.
You are asking a lot from people by expecting them to travel to another country. You in return, need to make it enjoyable. It sounds like a shambles and I'd be pretty pissed off if I went all that way to something that's been done on the cheap.

How many rooms and bathrooms does the house have?

You know your wedding guests' financial situations better than us, but it sounds entirely reasonable that 60 people would come to France, especially with free accommodation.
I'm British but got married in a european country (not France) - I don't count it as a destination wedding because it's where I had lived for many years is my DH's home country, but it did mean that all the British contingent had to travel. We invited around 80 brits, resigned to the fact that some of them wouldn't come, and in the end I think everyone did except one couple! And we certainly weren't providing accommodation either! Lots of people turned it into their summer holiday which was lovely.

I don't quite understand your reasoning here. The legal bit is often fairly boring. The weddings I've been to where the couple has already done the legal bit (which is very common for destination weddings in my experience) have all been beautiful, meaningful and very personal to the couple. More so than my official wedding cerenony probably was which consisted of the registar droning on for 20 minutes about legal rights in a language half the guests couldn't speak.

Well- I hate the very concept of a destination wedding (cost issues) but I'd go to that in a heartbeat.

So what's the accommodation situation? Some can stay at the house perhaps, but are there hotels/other options relatively nearby?

I'm not a fan of destination weddings in general, but a well connected spot in France which is meaningful to someone I like and which sounds like it will be nicely catered - yes I'd go if I could.

@EmeraldSlippers
Call me old-fashioned, but my favourite part of a wedding is the actual legal bit, whether in church, register office or other location. That is what it is all about, surely?
The shindigs afterwards are supposed to celebrate the legal bit.

Zombie thread