Can I switch to a destination wedding?

Question

So my fiance and I have set the date for October and have booked the ceremony and reception venues. Also, our mothers have done everything short of posting it on a billboard to get the news on our weddding date out.


The thing is, the stress and tension between everyone is killing us! All we want is a relaxing enjoyable day. We are still 9 months away and the moms are bickering, my sister is crying, and it is just pure chaos. Everyone wants to be incharge of everything and I could care less! They are already harrasing me about napkin colors....NAPKIN COLORS!!!!


What I really want to do is back out of all of these "traditional" wedding plans and go to the Bahamas and get married. We would invite our immediate families, but under 20 people. Am I overreacting? Would this be rude?

Answer 1

OK, have you sent out invites or save the date announcements yet? I'm sure you haven't sent out invites, don't know on save the dates. Typically, if you've sent out save the date announcements, you really SHOULD invite those people to the wedding. If you have done neither....then...

By all means, if you want to go to the Bahamas to get married, and keep it small and simple, go for it! And no, you're not overreacting, and no it's not rude to get married in this fashion. My sister had a destination wedding, and personally I loved it. I got to go to her wedding AND get a vacation all in one plane ticket!!

Basically what you need to do though is regain control of the situation, because it sounds like with the family dynamics you have (on both sides too) that there are a whole lot of supervisors, and not many grunt workers. Everyone wants to be in charge, and it's not going to matter if you get married at home, or in New Zealand, you're still going to have the same problem. This is where you and your fiance need to ASSERT yourselves. Sit down with each mother--both of you together do this--and explain that this is not their wedding, they've already gotten married, that this is YOUR wedding, and you will celebrate it in the manner you see fit.

Trust me when I say that you are setting up behavior patterns in both mothers that will last throughout your marriage. You don't want your mom or mother in law running your daughter's christening, or your son's high school graduation party, do you? Then don't let them run your wedding. They need to start taking a "hands off" approach to your lives now. They sit in the back seat, and it's a tough thing for many parents to do. Remember, it wasn't too many years ago, that your folks were waiting up for you to come home from your high school prom.

So have some good talks with the moms (maybe with the dads around for moral support). Start making the decisions about your wedding yourself, and don't let other people take control again! Congrats on your upcoming marriage, and best of luck reining in your family!

Answer 2

This is such a common problem with weddings. Too many cooks and they spoil the broth. Tell the family nicely and tactfully to butt out. This is not their wedding. Explain what you did to us and tell them that you want to enjoy the next few months and not have to deal with all the stress and tension they are causing you both. I don't think you are overreacting or would it be rude. However, if you do go to the Bahamas, do you plan to pay for the airfare for everyone or the hotel? That is quite an expense. However, I don't know what the financial arrangements are for the "stress wedding" so maybe the money is not a problem. If you are going to cancel your venues, you'd better hurry - don't know what the cancellation fees might be. Good luck and remember that the important thing is the marriage, not the wedding.

Answer 3

You've got plenty of time to change your plans now. Keep in mind that you probably should give about twice the notice (if not more) to guests since they'll not only have to take time off from work/school but they'll also have to pay their way to get to the ceremony. So be sure this is what you want, because you have to give more notice with invites and then it's set!

But, if your family is really that out of control with the wedding, maybe you'll get lucky and they won't want to travel to the Bahamas. Then you can have a nice, small, quiet wedding of your choosing! :-) Good luck.

Answer 4

LOL! I know EXACTLY what you mean, but for my wedding they were bugging me about the color of the tablecloths, not the napkins.

At the reception afterwards, one of the guys making a speech said "Thank you for not eloping." Most poeple laughed because they thought it was a joke, but htere were a few people who knew just how serious he was...

Take a deep breath, tell them that you don't care about the napkin colors, and try to relax. If that doesn't work, tell everyone that if they do not let up on stressing you out, you will elope. If there is still too much pressure, plan your destination wedding WITHOUT input from anyone else. Just tell them the date, time, and location.

Good luck!

Answer 5

as long as you haven't sent out invitations or save the date notices- you can change. It's quite common.
as far as a destination wedding goes- my wife and i did a destination wedding i highly recommend it. everyone arrived the day before and we had dinner the night before, hung out by the pool during the day of. when the ceremony came around, we were both chilled out, didn't have to run around greeting hundreds of people. it was great- we enjoyed it immensely. another virtue of the destination is that you go there for 1 weekend, plan like crazy and then there is nothing left to do planning wise when you come home.
as far as how many people to invite- with a destination wedding the percentage or people who accept is much lower than local. the great thing is- the people that are closest to you come, and those who are not important rarely come. about 1/2 of the people we invited came to the wedding. if you try a little- you can predict how many people will come with a high degree of accuracy. just create a spreadsheet with everyone who you might invite. next to each invitee put a probablity that they will come. 100% for you and your mother, 10% for you 70 year old uncle. you get the idea. you won't be right on all of them, but on average you will prob come very close. my spreadsheet predicted 99 guests- we had 100 exactly.

Answer 6

Remember this is your wedding. NO ONE Else's. If you feel you want to get married in the Bahamas more power to you. If you feel you want to get married at home with White napkins, who cares, if you are paying then you make ALL the decisions, who is invited, who is doing what, and what color you are using. It is not going to get any better, but in the long run you need to be happy with your decisions. Does not matter who thinks you need or want to have this certain thing for your wedding.
Remember "your wedding"

Answer 7

I think you are over reacting a bit. Every wedding is stressful. Take a breath. Planning a "destination" wedding is probably the most stressful of all since you will have to do all the planning (even for a small wedding) over the phone. You will be starting from square one if you change it now. I think it would probably cause chaos with everyone if you change it now.

Answer 8

I can understand the impulse, but technically yes, it would be rude. How rude depends on how much money has been shelled out for the reception hall, catering, etc and who shelled out the money. It would also depend on whether the invites have already been sent (people can get awfully prickly when you uninvite them)

Also destination weddings can be expensive (and a lot of hassle on their own).

Some of the stress can be alleviated by being more involved in the process (having a strong opinion on napkin colors for instance - who will want to argue with a bride dead set on having her perfect day); by delegating responsibilities (my sister gets to choose the dresses for the bridesmaids, I am not involved in that decision at all except for the matter of color) tell your mom she gets to choose the wedding cake, tell his mom she gets to choose the flowers, your sister gets to choose the catering menu, etc. (nobody can interfere with the others plans, you and your fiance get final veto power) I don't know how much stress it will relieve or if your finances will permit it, but try hiring a wedding planner to run interference for you (then it will be her job to pick out napkin colors)

Try waving around the threat of eloping to vegas (or city hall) if they can't sit down and discuss things like adults. I used the threat of getting married at a comic book convention to get my grandmother in line.

If your families can't get along and make this more tolerable to plan, then seriously investigate the possibility of a destination wedding. If nothing else it will certainly be smaller.

Try not to let it bug you too much. It doesn't sound like you are trying to push for the perfect day as much as your family is. Remind them that in the long run, it doesn't matter if your napkins don't match the cake and if you have to use handpicked dandilions for your bouquet, the day is about celebrating love, not being Cinderella for a day.

I hope this helps (and congrats on your upcoming nuptuals)

PS: book a spa day for yourself and your fiance (maybe your moms but that's entirely up to you) to relax the day before the wedding. It's amazing how much easier it is to deal with life (and family) after a massage (but don't get any facials, peels, or eyebrow wax - you don't want to look blotchy in the photos)

Answer 9

What do you want? Seriously? If you could have your wedding the way you want, what would you do? What would your fiancee want?

Do what you want to do, and what will make you most satisfied with the wedding event. At the end of the day the most important thing will be holding you in his arms. The wedding is special but the marriage that was just born is what is precious.

Answer 10

It's your wedding - do what you want. You'll probably lose some deposit monies but you won't lose your mind. Call whatever hotel in Bermuda you want to use and have their Wedding Coordinator make all the plans for you. Then make your reservations and have a great time!!