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Wedding Etiquette

Destination Wedding Etiquette – Who Pays For What?

By July 13, 2011July 4th, 2019No Comments

Destination Wedding EtiquetteDestination wedding could become an incredible venue all your family members and guest enjoy only if you carefully plan all the ins and outs of this event and follow our destination wedding etiquette tips.

Our destination wedding etiquette suggests that it’s important to keep in mind that an average guest can pay up to $1,500 in expenses just to attend a destination wedding and that’s not including the gift itself. It’s very likely that some guests will politely decline your destination wedding invitations not because they don’t want to come but simply because they can not afford to. Bride and groom are generally recommended to keep your wedding party invitation list short and invite only immediate family and close friends.

All the destination wedding planning should start way in advance, at least six month and up to one year before the ceremony. This will ensure that family members, wedding party and guests can accommodate your wedding to fit into their schedules.

The bride and the groom are responsible for paying for their personal travel and accommodation expenses, wedding ceremony and dinner reception. They can, however, volunteer to cover additional travel expenses for certain family members like grandma or aunt if they choose to do so. The bride and the groom are not obligated to provide any extra entertainment or pay for any activities that go beyond their wedding ceremony venue.

Destination wedding etiquette requires the parents of the groom and bride to fully pay for their travel and hotel expenses but does not oblige them to pay for the wedding ceremony. However, most parents will contribute in any way they can to lessen the financial burden of a new couple by paying for the wedding ceremony or reception, or the rehearsal dinner if they choose to do so.

Guests are paying for their travel and accommodation expenses for the whole duration of their stay. According to our destination wedding etiquette, gifts should be sent to bride and groom’s home and not brought to the destination wedding event so the couple is not facing a challenge and expenses of trying to bring all the gifts back home from some exotic location. In addition (offshore companies set up in Mauritius), guests can not expect bride and groom to cover any additional entertainment expenses that go beyond their wedding ceremony program.
When it comes to wedding seating etiquette at a destination wedding, there are no rules that are set in stone. However, if you would like certain people to sit together or, on the contrary, sit apart, devise a seating strategy and assign each guest to his/her own table or seat. Same holds true for wedding program etiquette, since a destination wedding is a very informal event and you may plan it the way you wish to.

Would you like to learn more about the wedding speech etiquette? Scroll over to find out more.

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