Just a question

[SilentAsTheDeath]

This is the closest forum I could find to post my problem in.

I'm sure many of you have weddings with families on other sides of the country/world. My fiance and I met in college, in Los Angeles, California. All of my friends and family are in San Diego, while all of his friends and family are in New Jersey. We also both have friends in Los Angeles from college.

How have you all planned cross country weddings? Is there some traditional way to do it? Does the bride go to the grooms family, or the groom to the brides? Both of us are in college, and can't really afford to fly our friends out to either place. His family is bigger than mine, but they also have a lot more money, so it would be easier for him to travel-His friends are just as poor as mine, though older and working whereas mine are mostly in school. (He is 22 and I am 19). We need to have the wedding near water, since we are having a Pirate Themed wedding. There is a boat in New York he wants to rent, but I have access to a lot of good stuff here in California through a lot of my friends.

I suppose we could road trip to either place and put people up in a hotel. I really don't know what to do, and it's making it hard to plan any other aspects of the wedding. I don't have as many people who I would like to attend the wedding as he does, and I know even fewer would attend if I had it in New York.

Sorry for all the info, was just hoping I could get some good advice based on a full picture. Thanks!

[kyzmit]

Well, I don't know the etiquette and I'm sure your description is slightly biased towards you, but from what it sounds like, you should do it in CA! First, the wedding is traditionally the bride's deal and thrown by her family, so if it's easier for you to have it there, do it. Second, you met in CA, have your mutual friends there, etc.


One other thing you may want to do is have your wedding wherever and then have a second reception in the other location when you get back from your honeymoon. In my case, we live in western NY, but all his family's in the midwest. We're getting married in VT (basically tradition in my family and he talked me into doing it because it's what I really wanted, not what would be easiest) and having a party when we get back home for our friends who couldn't come. We've invited 100 people to the wedding, but I'm going to send out invitations to everyone, e-mail my entire team at work, and post a flier at my old job... basically as long as they behave themselves, everyone's invited.

[reecey]

This is the closest forum I could find to post my problem in.

I'm sure many of you have weddings with families on other sides of the country/world. My fiance and I met in college, in Los Angeles, California. All of my friends and family are in San Diego, while all of his friends and family are in New Jersey. We also both have friends in Los Angeles from college.

How have you all planned cross country weddings? Is there some traditional way to do it? Does the bride go to the grooms family, or the groom to the brides? Both of us are in college, and can't really afford to fly our friends out to either place. His family is bigger than mine, but they also have a lot more money, so it would be easier for him to travel-His friends are just as poor as mine, though older and working whereas mine are mostly in school. (He is 22 and I am 19). We need to have the wedding near water, since we are having a Pirate Themed wedding. There is a boat in New York he wants to rent, but I have access to a lot of good stuff here in California through a lot of my friends.

I suppose we could road trip to either place and put people up in a hotel. I really don't know what to do, and it's making it hard to plan any other aspects of the wedding. I don't have as many people who I would like to attend the wedding as he does, and I know even fewer would attend if I had it in New York.

Sorry for all the info, was just hoping I could get some good advice based on a full picture. Thanks!

typically, the bride's family hosts the wedding - so the groom's family would travel. I guess whomever is paying for the wedding would decide that. If you two are paying for it yourselves, then its something you'll have to talk about - weigh the pros and cons of each situation.

[Kelly1Mickey]

I would say to gorget for a minut where everyone has to travel from. Just think about where you and your FH would be happiest doing the wedding. Most of my family lives in NY, FH's family lives in IN, and we live in Florida. So the wedding is in Florida...both families will have to travel.

[PrincessBride5-21-05]

This is the closest forum I could find to post my problem in.

I'm sure many of you have weddings with families on other sides of the country/world. My fiance and I met in college, in Los Angeles, California. All of my friends and family are in San Diego, while all of his friends and family are in New Jersey. We also both have friends in Los Angeles from college.

How have you all planned cross country weddings? Is there some traditional way to do it? Does the bride go to the grooms family, or the groom to the brides? Both of us are in college, and can't really afford to fly our friends out to either place. His family is bigger than mine, but they also have a lot more money, so it would be easier for him to travel-His friends are just as poor as mine, though older and working whereas mine are mostly in school. (He is 22 and I am 19). We need to have the wedding near water, since we are having a Pirate Themed wedding. There is a boat in New York he wants to rent, but I have access to a lot of good stuff here in California through a lot of my friends.

I suppose we could road trip to either place and put people up in a hotel. I really don't know what to do, and it's making it hard to plan any other aspects of the wedding. I don't have as many people who I would like to attend the wedding as he does, and I know even fewer would attend if I had it in New York.

Sorry for all the info, was just hoping I could get some good advice based on a full picture. Thanks!



Just FYI I tried the whole make it easy for the groom family, and have it near them. It is nearly impossible to plan a wedding in another state. Besides that you can;t controll or make descesions in person. After making 3 eight hour trips and getting nother accomplished I changed my wedding TOTALLY arounf in 3 months! Right before I sent out the inviatations, It was stressful, but all worked out beautifully

[goody2shoes]

Follow your dream is my advice. Don't plan for what you think others want, just plan for what suits you and your fiance best. If you are both happy, I am sure others will be happy for you. If you give choices, you end up pleasing nobody - least of all yourselves. Surely you're not intending paying for your guests to follow you all over your country? Don't they pay to travel, stay over, etc themselves? If so, can't see any problem with you having the wedding etc exactly where you want it.

[carrie s]

my fh is from germany, i am from the us (but living in germany for some years now). my imediate family (parents and sister) moved back to germany too.

we are getting married in florida in october. it will be just the 2 of us.

when we are back we`ll have our reception in germany for our families and friends. if nobody can afford to travel from coast to coast,having two receptions is the best choise. ;)

[kyzmit]

Just FYI I tried the whole make it easy for the groom family, and have it near them. It is nearly impossible to plan a wedding in another state. Besides that you can;t controll or make descesions in person. After making 3 eight hour trips and getting nother accomplished I changed my wedding TOTALLY arounf in 3 months! Right before I sent out the inviatations, It was stressful, but all worked out beautifully

Well... it's definately not impossible to plan a wedding in another state. I've made 1 8hr. trip for planning in the past 10 months and it looks like it may work out... e-mail and faxes are a godsend. Luckily, I don't really care about most aspects being absolutely perfect, and I know the area and a lot of people in it really well.

It is EXTREMELY stressful though, especially when things go wrong. I would definately recommend not doing long-distance planning if possible. If I had it to do over again, I would. I wouldn't be as happy with the location and officiant, but I probably wouldn't have gotten so sick (literally, I was in the hospital for a week a couple weeks ago and all it did was add to the stress) and in my mind at least, everything would have been taken care of by now instead of all the last-minute crap I'm dealing with.

[Elaine]

:rolleyes: A pirate themed wedding sounds fun! :)

My fiance and I have a similar problem. My family is in California, his family is in New Orleans. His friends are mostly on the east coast and we live in Las Vegas.

This is part of the reason we want to have a destination wedding in Costa Rica.

But we will have a reception where all these people will be invited. We haven't decided yet, but we will probably just have it here in Las Vegas since this is where we live and it's so much more convenient for us (Vegas is one of the world's wedding capitals, afterall). Also, because Vegas is a tourist destination, we think most people will be able to find reasonably priced air and hotel from where ever they are, so the travel burden is distributed.

~Elaine