Planning A Wedding Abroad? Make Things Easier For Your Traveling Guests

Many of us dream of a wedding abroad in some capacity. Perhaps we wish to get married on the picturesque beach where we first decided to propose to our spouse. Maybe we wish to get in touch with some of our cultural roots. Maybe we simply wish to do something a little more textured and varied than the expected norms of our resided culture.

To this end, you might decide to invite your wedding guests to a place in another country, which can serve as a small vacation for them. But you must remember that despite this being your big day, it can also be quite a planning challenge for some. It’s not as easy as driving to a city at the weekend, but will add many different elements of planning to their experience. This is why it can be worthwhile to avoid inviting so many people, or sometimes to avoid the expectation that they need to arrive at all. Some may not be able to book their time off work, or have children and their school terms to think about.

However, for those that do arrive, we would recommend making things easier for your guests. They’re making an extra effort, after all. Here’s how:

Offer Some Financial Compensation

If you’re taking a wedding abroad, odds are you have somewhat of a higher budget to run things. It’s simply going to be more expensive to plan, hire services, find accommodation and catering while abroad. It’s technically a vacation as well as an event, not to mention all the planning time. This likely means you have at least some extra money to spare. It could be that at least for your most cherished guests, such as your grandparents, you help them with the financial difficulty of coming to your wedding. You might purchase their plane tickets or at least contribute in part to their accommodation. You may also compare car rentals to ensure you can pick people up from the airport and drop them at your hotel. They might not need this, but it can be nice to offer, and to plan around that in your budget. Odds are that this can help ease the burden for some people.

Show Them Where & When

When heading abroad, there are many variables. Most of  your family will not have seen the venue you have chosen, or the hotels they will be staying at. Instead of leaving them in the dark and making them figure all this out through contact information and addresses, create a few ‘digital or printed packs’ you can send to them, with photos of the event hall, the itinerary for the day, as well as any other considerations you wish to keep in mind. This can quite often make the most difference when helping everyone feel less anxious about the unknown.

Explain Your Reason Why

Justifying your reason why you have to have your wedding abroad rather than just telling them to come can help more people see this as an essential event not to be missed. Do not be combative, but do not entertain any cutting questions that certain members of the family might suggest. It’s all about respectful communication. If you can achieve this, they will be more accepting and understanding of this extra effort.

With this advice, we hope your wedding on foreign shores can go much more smoothly.vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv