In response to MountainBreeze.... I agree that its sort of "non-traditional" to ask people to come to a destination wedding that you have no intension of reciprocating their efforts by paying for a meal or cake and punch. BUT I also think that if the guest list is small enough for the people traveling to the wedding you don't even NEED to send invitations. Email, call, have your Mom or someone call... It's always easier to talk to someone about a sticky situation informally than trying to figure out some eloquent way to tell them something they might not want to hear. (you know it comes off impersonal and therefore impolite) Then with the people invited to your reception at home, just make it like a regular invitation...as formal or informal as you want. I mean the economy issues go both ways, but if you go to a family member or a friend personally and say... We can't afford this but love you and wish you could attend; please do if you can afford it as well then you don't even need to worry about half the stuff that I'm sure is on your mind. I have a similar problem have been searching around the web....maybe someone brilliant can help me!! I am getting married in my home town...which I don't live in and neither does my man. We are having a small family wedding with a formal sit down dinner to follow in my home town in Indiana. THEN.... we (my fianc� and I) are coming back "home" to Tennessee to have a follow-up less formal reception celebration with our friends and some of my extended family who also live in TN. Majority of the people who are invited to the wedding are not coming to the Reception in Tennessee. (Why would they it's far away and they already saw us get married?) BUT there are about 50 extended family members (that all live in TN) that I want to invite to the wedding with the anticipation that they will choose to come to the Reception in TN instead of driving to IN. So I was thinking of sending the following: Indiana wedding people get invitations to the wedding with RSVP Cards ( That will Read: Please Reply by X: Accept ____ Decline_____ if accepting: Chicken_______ or Steak________; Tennessee Reception ONLY people get there own seperate invitations to the Reception saying (we were married on XYZ, please join us for a Reception celebrating our marriage at blah blah; Then! Here in lies the problem--what do I do about those 50 family members who I want to invite to the wedding and also give them the choice of coming to the Tennessee Reception? I was thinking of sending them a seperate Reception card (included when I send the wedding invites) that say in a nut shell "in lieu of wedding you can instead attend the Tennessee Reception") Now... how do I word that without sounding like an idiot (see above!) or does anyone of this world wide web have a better idea!!!!! I'm getting married in April of 2011 I've have run out of Freaking Time to be clueless!! Thank you to anyone who responds. StephC.

Exactly, Lowspark. And you have to be honest, I think. If the man in that Carolyn Hax article had said, "We care about our grandparents, but we care more about having what we consider the 'perfect' wedding," I wouldn't have cared much for his values, but I would have valued his honesty. Though I'm with Gellchom and Tally Sue - his going on about being creative and special don't sit well with me. What I hear more often from people planning destination weddings are justifications. "It's a vacation for everybody," even though, as others have written, it's not much of a vacation if someone else chooses the date, time, destination, and companions. "I know that everyone we're going to invite can afford it," even though the people who say this are simply judging from the size/quality of the guests' house, car, boat, clothes, whatever. "Everyone would have to travel, anyway," even though hotel accommodations in one's hometown are likely to be less expensive than in the romantic resort destinations that are generally chosen for such weddings. (Plus, many families and groups of friends will provide accommodations in their own homes if the wedding is held in the home town of the bride or groom or in the town where they currently live. I know my own circle of friends did this for one another's weddings, and now does it for their kids' weddings.) And when you travel for a wedding, you're likely to stay over just one or two nights, not the longer period that most destination weddings seem to anticipate. I can understand a destination wedding like Scarlett's. If these few friends are the only ones that would have been invited to the wedding anyway, no matter where it was held, and if they could all manage to plan a vacation together and Scarlett and her husband got married in the process, that sounds great. The people who were hurt by not being invited would have been hurt no matter where she held the wedding, because they wouldn't have been invited anyway. Lowspark, I think what people having a reception in the groom's hometown have on their side is tradition. Even if they all lived in the same town, the groom's side sometimes holds a reception for the new couple if the bride's family doesn't choose to invite as many guests as the groom's family would like. Maybe a reception following the destination wedding will become tradition, as well, though (at least to me) it would feel like dividing your family and friends by income (the people who have money go to the destination wedding, the poorer people must content themselves with the home-town reception) rather than by closeness to the bride and groom.

I would not be that thrilled with travel to Mexico at all because of safety concerns. Although my friend is considering Mexico for a 50th birthday celebration and since we went to Australia for my 40th, I'd feel obligated to go. When we were planning our wedding, DH and I lived in separate cities, and our extended families were in two different cities. We thought about destinations, but my mother was in her 80's and doesn't really travel that well and doesn't have a passport. So, we went with my hometown since that was the largest group that would likely attend. DH's grandma did fly in, and she did great. MIL paid for her and two aunts' tickets so they could attend. We really didn't want to get married in place where our mothers and grandmother could not make it. OTOH, DH's cousin planned a destination wedding in the Dominican Republic because he knew his family couldn't really attend there, especially his mother, who has had some mental health issues. This was really sad. The aunt may actually may have some sort of autism, but since she's in her 60's she would have never been diagnosed with it.

You are correct that you need to be careful here to be both polite and CLEAR. Do I assume correctly that everyone is invited to both the ceremony in Jamaica and the reception at home? If so, then I think you can put both on the same invitation. I know you feel you don't need replies for the ceremony, but let your RSVP card (or online system, or whatever you're using) have both on it, or people may be confused about what they are and are not invited to. Don't worry about the invitation putting emphasis on the reception. You may be trying to avoid being pushy about expecting people to fly to Jamaica, but the effect is often the opposite; you don't want to imply that you are hoping they won't attend the ceremony. But make sure that the dates are very clearly connected to the events. And you said it is to be a formal invitation? You didn't say who is doing the inviting (you and your fiance? Your parents?). Here is fairly formal suggested wording for an invitation (1) issued by the two of you (2) for a nonreligious ceremony (see below if not). I'm assuming you are having a meal for your guests after the ceremony. I can't get the lines centered, but you get the idea: Sarah Clifton and John Smith request the pleasure of your company as they are married Ceremony June 3, 2017 5:00 pm Dinner to follow Hotel Pina Colada Montego Bay, Jamaica Cocktail attire Reception June 10, 2017 6:00 pm Monroe Hotel 123 East Main Street Hometown Casual attire Then the response card (or whatever) could say Number attending June 3 ceremony in Jamaica ______ June 10 reception in Hometown ______ If your parents are the hosts, substitute for the first two lines Mildred [Jones] and Zebulon Clifton request the pleasure of your company at the marriage of their daughter Sarah [insert "Clifton" here if your parents aren't both "Clifton'} to [or "and" for a Jewish wedding, and I think some others] John Smith [optional in some cultures] son of Ann [Simmons] and Jerome Smith [or whatever his last name is if not the same as the groom's] If it is a religious wedding, substitute "honour of your presence" for "pleasure of your company."