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I am not a fan if it is a very expensive destination, and i am only willing to go if it is a close friend.

I like a destination wedding if everything is provided for me! But if I'm expected to pay for much more than my flight and hotel, I'm not really down (even pre-baby).

if we had endless $$$ and time off, i'd love them! but we don't, so right now if we were invited to one, we probably would have to skip it.

We had one and I love them. People totally understand if you can't make it so that doesn't concern me too much. And it's a good excuse to make a little vacation!

I live far away from my "home" and pretty much all my friends, though, so I guess almost every wedding is a destination wedding for me.

But I think that is typical! People don't stay in their hometowns anymore. Pretty much any wedding is going to require travel for some if not all of its attendees!

I love them! I'll use any excuse for a vacation!

I am biased. I had a destination wedding. Everyone constantly brings up what a great time it was. We had around 40 people and it was such an amazing experience. Our friends that came that will be getting married in the future have all decided to now have destination weddings. I can't wait to go to them

Not really but I’ll go if the person is extremely close to me. I’m a bridesmaid in a destination wedding at the end of this year so I don’t have much of a choice. It would have been a lot easier for everyone involved if they could have planned a stateside wedding but I understand their reasoning behind it. We’ll go and we’ll have fun. I’ll just complain about having to pay for it up until we leave! Lol

If she wasn’t one of my best friends, I wouldn’t go. I generally feel that destination weddings are kind of an inconvenience. The couple asks their family and friends to use their precious vacation time, pay a boat load of money to travel to the destination then stay at a resort which they more than likely didn’t get any say in and ultimately visit a location that they possibly had no desire to go to. Couples try to pitch these weddings as vacations for their guests but really, they’re not. Vacations are when you get to choose where and when you go. With destination weddings, the traveler has very little say. Some couples even micromanage all of the time there so that their guests don’t even get to enjoy the island/city.

However, I have no issues with somewhat local destination weddings. If we can drive there and stay for a long weekend, hell yea! It’s the trips that require airfare and at least a week out of our lives that I find kind of annoying.

Heck yes! But I've never been invited to one it's a good excuse for a vacation

This is such a difficult question!!!

I'm not a family oriented person. I'm just not. And although I love my friends, I didn't need them all around me the day I gave my life to someone else..... it was about us and no-one else..... so yes, in that sense, I LOVE destination weddings. The sun, the sand, the sea breeze gently blowing at your hair, walking barefoot down an aisle made petals, just the two of you (and a couple of really close friends for witnesses) away from the hustle and bustle of the world. So romantic. No screaming kids in the ceremony, no worrying about dietary requirements for 150 people and disabled access for your Aunt Maud. No-one you don't really like but felt bad about excluding. Perfect!

What I'm not on board with is people who want both! They want the big wedding, they want their friends there, they want their family there and they want to do it 4000 miles away!! Not cool. It costs their guests a lot of money to attend their wedding and they have to use their precious holiday time in a way they haven't chosen to use it.... so no, I'm not a fan of them then!!

The yardstick for me is this: Would I actively choose to spend two weeks in the Caribbean with these people? If yes - I would love to go to their destination wedding! If no - I'm really not close enough to them to justify the expense and, if I can't get out of it, I will moan until take off!!!!

I considered having a destination wedding in Hawaii, but I didn't feel comfortable planning a wedding from afar. Also, DH didn't like the idea of possibly running into our guests if we extended our stay there and did part of our honeymoon there. Now I sometimes wish we had just gone that route - the idea of a smaller, more intimate wedding with our closest friends in a different place sounds so romantic and perfect.

I've never been to a destination wedding, but if it was prior to having my LO's I think I would've loved to have made a vacation out of it... now, I don't know if I'd consider going to one as a parent. It would seem more overwhelming/tiring than anything.

@travelgirl1: Wow Spain!! That sounds amazing! I'm partial to Spain because I studied abroad there and I think it's such a gorgeous country with a fascinating culture. Gaudi everywhere!

I went to a wedding in New Zealand. I stayed there for a month and it was hands down the best vacation/travel experience of my life (lol, except my own wedding I guess)! Although oddly I didn't think of it as a DW because my friend had just moved there with her FI and his family was there, but I guess they could have had the wedding in Canada before they moved but she wanted the beauty of NZ for her wedding.

And I had a DW in Jamaica and loved it and have no regrets. I never thought it was a big deal to ask my friends and family to travel because we are all the type who take all inclusive Caribbean vacations as much as we can and have gone on vacation with each other in the past to those resorts. I did invite other people as well but I knew no one else other than close friends and family would feel obligated to go and so if anyone else came it was because they wanted a vacation out of it.

AND finally, I keep hoping I will get invited to another DW one day because i think a good friend's wedding is a GREAT excuse to travel