Which location would you rather have your daughter’s wedding at?
Destination Weddings--A Great Alternative
You should be involved with your daughter and wife from the earliest stages identifying where the wedding and reception will be held. These will determine the majority of your costs, so it is critical that you participate. Otherwise just shut up and write checks. When my wife, daughter, and maid of honor met for their initial talk of where the wedding would occur, they did it at an afternoon tea. Something I equate with shoving burning coals into my eyes, so I didn’t go. However, if I had, I am sure that I could have swayed the initial conversation and decisions and avoided a costly side trip to Greece.
After that initial meeting my wife relayed that our daughter wanted to do a destination wedding—on the Mediterranean. Her idea was to rent a couple of Greek villas for a week and everyone could come over for a week-long party. Villa rentals are not too expensive in Greece, but they ain’t cheap. I suggested Mexico, but was turned down by my wife and daughter. We talked with our daughter and determined two primary islands that she thought would be ideal. My wife and I went on a site-survey trip to Greece over a four-day weekend. We found out that to fly to a specific island in Greece took us about 18 hours to fly there with the plane changes and waiting in airports. This ended up being the deciding factor in determining that Greece was just too far away to be practical, no matter how long people were staying. Even if you plan on an extended stay, not everyone can dedicate a week to a party. We ended up instead going for Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Of course this little side trip to demonstrate that Greece wasn't practical cost me $3,000.
In our area, the Northern Virginia/D.C. area, renting the local hotel for a reception is about as expensive as renting a monster villa with staff that sleeps 30 in Mexico (http://www.pvprop.com/rentals.htm). To me it was a no brainer. However, unless you have a lot of relatives in Mexico, the wedding will involve a significant amount of travel and its related costs. For the nine percent of the brides who went for a destination wedding this last year, their cost for their reception was 41 percent less than the average. If you select an all-inclusive resort, then you will know ahead of time exactly what everything will cost you.
Even though the Cancun area is closer to us, the time of the year that our daughter is planning her wedding is hurricane season. Hurricanes can be a real downer during a wedding, so we switched coasts to avoid the probability of bad weather. Also, this was the end of the off-season for Puerto Vallarta, so prices are lower. This also means less people competing for a limited number of assets and therefore better prices. If you are doing a destination wedding you should check out the weather history for that location for the planned dates. This can be done through the Weather Channel (www.weather.com) or through a Google search on the location’s name plus climate. Also, once you decide on a wedding location, you should go visit it before the wedding. You need to know the lay of the land to plot out the reception tables and to identify which room is the farthest away from the sound system to put Aunt Matilda in. You really don't want to wait until the wedding to find out the reason the website photos looked so go was that they were taken 30 years ago, the last time the building was renovated.
When you think of alternative venues for the wedding site, you should even consider alternative centuries. No, I’m not suggesting that you have your daughter put off her wedding until you can afford it and then present her with a spreadsheet that shows that you should be able to afford her ideal wedding by the year 2125. Instead, go back in time. Renaissance festivals are popular in many areas and the one closest to us, the Maryland Renaissance Festival, even has a chapel on the grounds that they rent for $100 (http://www.rennfest.com/renaissance-festival-weddings.shtml). The couple (and guests if you want) dress in period costumes (which can be rented for the day). Period musicians are available for an additional fee. The reception may be a bit cheesy with everyone gnawing on smoked turkey wings and swilling goblets of beer, but it will be memorable.
