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People can get married where ever they want... but...


marbel
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Just venting, out of sadness, not anger.

 

A beloved relative of mine is getting married this summer.  She lives about 800 miles away, so it means significant travel for my family. That's  to be expected, of course.   We are looking at $2500 for airfare for us all, so we will probably have to drive.  That's OK.  

 

But... turns out her wedding venue is about 50 miles from her home city, in a tiny, tiny town. The hotel accommodations are limited - as in, a place with 13 rooms, none of which has more than one bed,  a B&B that is super-high $$$ for us, and a place that according to TripAdvisor is a dirty, nasty, dump.  The next nearest place is 30 miles away.  

 

The one-bed thing is significant for us, as we have two college-aged kids who can share a room but not a bed.  If they don't have roll-aways or allow one person to sleep on the floor*, we would need 3 rooms.    Or, I guess, the males and females could split up and share, but I'd like to share with my husband. :-)    So I'm not sure what we will do. 

 

*And I am not keen on anyone sleeping on the floor in a hotel, no matter how nice.   Ick.    Yeah, we could spread out a sheet.  Still, ick.

 

Sigh.  It is a beautiful place.  I can see why someone would want to be married there.   But I'm sure there are other people who will be unable to attend because of the distance and lack of accommodations.   50 miles is a long way to drive home after a wedding reception.    Even 30, really (to the next town with hotels/motels).  

 

Just feeling a little sad.   She lives in a neat, historic city.  Hard to imagine there weren't nice places for a wedding right in town.   

 

ETA:  looking at Air BnB and VRBO.   Nothing so far!  

Edited by marbel
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I go with Trip Advisor.  If the reviews seem to be honest (written by real people, not by the property) they are probably correct. If there are a lot of positive reviews, and 1 or 2 negative reviews, I'd stay in a property, but if the majority of reviews are negative, avoid like the plague. I've written 2 or 3 reviews that are on TripAdvisor.    The place with only 1 bed in the rooms is out for you.  IMO, you can either stay in a town 30 or 50 miles from the wedding venue, and bite the bullet and drive back there after the ceremony and reception, or you can stay home and send your regrets that it wasn't possible for you to attend the wedding. Driving 800 miles for me means 2 long days in a car, each way, and an additional night in a hotel or motel, each way, while in transit. I would not want to go 800 miles directly, even if different people are sharing the driving.  Break it up into a 2 day drive. 

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I guess it all depends upon where one lives and what they're used to.

 

30 miles away for reasonable accommodations doesn't seem all that far to me... esp if it's a pretty place.

 

OTOH, we went CHEAP for our own wedding and were glad when my oldest did too - hoping for similar for my younger two (but it will be their choice, of course), so I can commiserate a little.

 

I always wondered why folks spent so much on a wedding... if anything, I'd have spent more on a honeymoon!  (Well, we did that too come to think of it.)

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ps  We're also not opposed to sleeping on the floor in motels.  My kids have done it often (with a sleeping bag).  It's not really different than when we sleep outside camping IMO.

 

Definitely beware of bed bugs in this day and age though.  They seem to be everywhere!  We try to make sure we use heat to kill off anything before bringing stuff back into our house if we're not sure about something or some place.

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Thirty is no big deal here. Its often thirty between church and reception, or its 90 in to the big city for both, and we don't make city wages so we don't stay.

Is There a campground, where you could rent an rv?

What does your relative suggest?

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Yes, 30 miles here equals 30 minutes. I remember living in the Philadelphia area, though, where 30 miles meant double or triple that. It might be helpful to use google maps to determine how far hotels are from the venue in minutes instead of miles.

 

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Normally a 30 mile drive for a lower priced hotel isn't a big deal. But you're already driving so far and being so far away for sleep means you'll probably miss some of the fun- other relatives will probably hang out until the wee hours or something since they are all staying nearby. And maybe have breakfast early the next day or whatever. And you have a 30 or 40 minute drive to get to your hotel. Boo. 

 

 

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Normally a 30 mile drive for a lower priced hotel isn't a big deal. But you're already driving so far and being so far away for sleep means you'll probably miss some of the fun- other relatives will probably hang out until the wee hours or something since they are all staying nearby. And maybe have breakfast early the next day or whatever. And you have a 30 or 40 minute drive to get to your hotel. Boo. 

 

Yes.  It would be nice, if everyone could stay in the same place, or, at least, in the same town.  You might want to visit, before or after the wedding, with people you haven't seen for a long time. 

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We had our wedding 145 miles from where we lived. My hair got done, then we drove 145 miles, and changed into wedding dress and suit, had wedding. We did stay right there for our honeymoon afterwards though, and some of the other guests had hotels right there too (most of the guests came from out-of-state anyway), but I think a few of the guests drove the 145 miles back home afterwards.

 

My oldest got bused 32 miles each way for half day pre-K when he was 4yo, 5 days a week. 30 miles for a wedding accommodations one time... nothing.

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Yes.  It would be nice, if everyone could stay in the same place, or, at least, in the same town.  You might want to visit, before or after the wedding, with people you haven't seen for a long time. 

 

OP might want to find out where the other guests are planning on staying. Since the BB is expensive and has bad reviews, it's quite possible that a number of them will be staying in that town 30 miles away.

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I second the campground suggestion. Also, around here many campgrounds have cabins for rent that don't show up on normal motel searches. They are inexpensive and clean. In the internet age we tend to think that if you can't find it on the web it isn't there, but nothing could be farther from the truth, lol. Most businesses here are owned and run by people who are not internet savvy. 

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30 miles isn't much at all. It depends on what you're used to.

 

When I lived in a Baltimore suburb, 30 miles or any drive over about 12 minutes seemed like FOREVER.

 

Then I moved to farm country PA and the grocery store that I go to is 10 miles away and a 22 minute drive and seems like a snap, because everything is far away.

 

I'd stay in the place 30 miles away. It'll be a 45 minute or so drive, which is what I commonly drive to get places around here. If it's over an hour, that's when it starts to feel far.

 

Then again, my friend lived in Washington DC when I moved up here and she pointed out that even though her grocery store is only 2 miles from her house, it often took her 22 minutes to get there from all the traffic.

 

Any idea what sort of traffic you'll encounter on those 30 miles? That might change my answer. If it's a straight shot, no problem. If it's through a city, that's a problem.

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We have a similar issue with a nephew's wedding in the fall. Limited accommodation and a 12 hour drive to get there. Thirty minutes away does not seem far for me. (I have to drive at least that far to go pretty much anywhere I go.) For us, the cost of travel and putting six people up in hotels rooms is getting prohibitive. Nephew's sister got married last summer at the beach (also 10 hours away) so we did AirBnB and rented a beach house. This year we are doing more travel due to dd's extracurricular and do not have the money. Not sure what we will do. We do not want to miss the wedding especially since we attended both his sisters' weddings but it would be so much easier and less expensive for us to send a very nice gift to the happy couple and not go.

Edited by Donna
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Another option is for you to attend the wedding as the sole member of your family, but ALSO offer to help with the preparations or logistics on the day of the wedding. 

You could be a big help to the wedding party, or with the reception prep . . . and could help you feel better about needing to leave the rest of the family at home.

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I agree that people can get married where they choose.

 

However, I totally understand being sad and frustrated at what seems to be a lack of consideration toward the convenience/comfort/wallets of the guests the bridal couple plans to invite, especially when you're already looking at significant travel and expense just to attend. (When you're already looking at that, sometimes the whole "what's a little more" just makes the whole thing TOO much.)

 

It's perfectly OK to go by yourself or, if you're not comfortable doing that (and I wouldn't), sending a thoughtful gift and loving wishes.

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I live near Garga except even more in the middle of nowhere, so I drive 10-20 miles to everything. I wouldn't bat an eye at a 30 mile drive even after an evening wedding. However, I'm also a night owl who doesn't drink, so the worst that would happen is I might grab a Coke for the drive if DH wasn't up to driving. My sister's wedding was in the afternoon, and while the church wasn't far from the hotel where my whole family stayed, the reception was a bit of a drive, half an hour or so, and even with small children (four months through 11), the ride back to the hotel that night wasn't a big deal.

 

However, I can see why not everyone would be okay with that drive, especially with children and especially if everyone else wasn't making that drive. I think I'd ask around and see where other friends and relatives were staying. Perhaps there's a way to arrange breakfast the next morning in between or closer to the better selections of hotels or something.

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I'm sorry! You have gotten some good advice, so I won't add to it, but I do understand the frustration. I've had a lot of friends complain about inconvenient weddings, just because the bride has found the "perfect place". When I got married I tried to consider my guests when I planned the time and venue.

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30 miles is not that far....we are expected to drive at least that much back and forth for niece's rehearsal dinner, and next-day wedding/reception.

What is bugging us (and the bride's mom, who grew up in Chicago, agrees)is that the wedding is outdoors in the evening in late October at the lakefront. Might be Indian summer, but most likely cold and wet and windy and COLD. Did I mention COLD?

Edited by JFSinIL
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When I was growing up, my parents would no more have driven 800 miles to go to a wedding than fly to the moon for one.  Fifty or a hundred miles was about it.  And everyone still ended up married!  And everyone talked to each other!  

 

It's kind of the way we are, too.  We did go to 2 weddings, each 1000 miles away last summer, but one was with a group of friends and family of the groom; we all got hotel rooms in the same hotel, shared breakfasts and midnight drinks and it was a ton of fun, what with all the dinners and wedding and dancing and so on.  And it was well within our means to go and be comfortable.  The groom's family paid for extra rooms for the groom's friends to stay in, so we just had our 2 selves to pay for.

 

The other, we were able to make part of our annual Big Road Trip, and the couple were the children of life-long friends we go see each other every summer anyway.  It was a blast.

 

But had it just been to go stay in a hotel somewhere and go to a wedding, I would have stayed home.  And the lovely couples would have ended up married just the same.  

 

I love what WoollySocks said above:  It's an invitation, not a summons.  

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Maybe there's a huge difference in wedding activities and expectations. Almost all the weddings I've been to in Canada are church ceremony then dinner and reception, very often going late into the evening. Alcohol is served. If all the guests have to then figure out how to drive either 30 or 50 miles by taxi or what-not to a hotel, it would be extremely weird, to say the least. I can't even imagine it, quite frankly. There must be some other things happening at this particular wedding.

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LOL most of you must think I am awfully fussy!  

 

Normally a 30 mile drive for a lower priced hotel isn't a big deal. But you're already driving so far and being so far away for sleep means you'll probably miss some of the fun- other relatives will probably hang out until the wee hours or something since they are all staying nearby. And maybe have breakfast early the next day or whatever. And you have a 30 or 40 minute drive to get to your hotel. Boo. 

 

This is it exactly.    A 30 mile/45 minute drive after driving all day, to and from rehearsal dinner, then again the next day for the wedding... missing out on the late-night hanging out together. That's what makes me a little sad.

 

And sure, we could just say no.  We want to go; if we didn't care about missing it I wouldn't be sad about it. I'd send a gift and call it good.

 

At this point I'm leaning toward taking my daughter and flying.  It will be more expensive but much easier.  My husband and son want to go but they won't be heartbroken if they miss it.  My daughter will!  So, now to start checking on flights and rental cars.  

 

(Another thing about taking my daughter alone - we can handle cheap flights with multiple stops, many layovers, etc.  My ADHD/anxious kid doesn't do so well under those circumstances. So we can probably find cheaper if not more convenient flights.) 

 

Thanks for all the thoughts.  I still think 30 miles is a long way under those circumstances though!   :lol:  :lol:

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I am sorry. 30 -50 miles here is normal because we are in an entirely rural area. We are a fifty minute drive from anywhere. We do not have motel chain here. For dd's wedding we put her inlaws and his grandparents and sister up with relatives. Others either stayed at the independently but clean motel 21 miles away, in the city 50 minutes away, or didn't come. Our family is small and my dad was recovering from open heart surgery so they could not have guests.

 

Being 800 miles away is a very good reason not to attend.

 

There are a lot of reasons they may have chosen that venue. Availability for one. Many churches, halls, event centers, parks, and chapels book two years in advance. It gets really complicated juggling the needs and schedules of two families and many times two working adults who are trying to get their bosses to let them have time off.

 

An invitation is not a command performance so do not feel guilty if you must decline.

 

Also check the invitation to make sure your children are indeed invited. Unless specifically clarified with the first names of the cousins or "Mr and Mrs so and so and family" the invite might be for you and hubby only.

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Maybe there's a huge difference in wedding activities and expectations. Almost all the weddings I've been to in Canada are church ceremony then dinner and reception, very often going late into the evening. Alcohol is served. If all the guests have to then figure out how to drive either 30 or 50 miles by taxi or what-not to a hotel, it would be extremely weird, to say the least. I can't even imagine it, quite frankly. There must be some other things happening at this particular wedding.

Many churches here have extremely strict policies concerning weddings so the younger generation for the most part struggles to find a venue if they want a church wedding. Church halls here are very small. My parents church is the largest in a three county area able to accomodate a large crowd. No alcohol, no dancing, no secular music - bride can walk down the aisle to Ode To Joy or some other Sacred number so it is always a surprise to the ones following the trend of wanting "A Thousand Years" from Twilight to find out that even as an instrumental number it is a no no - and use of the church and fellowship hall is $500 plus $100 custodial if the bride or groom are not members.

 

Though we reguarly attend a church in this county it is not available to our children to use for weddings in the future because living away from home so not attending 50% of the time makes them ineligible to use thr facilities. This is getting more and more common.

 

The largest restaurant banquet room here seats 40-50 maximum. Everyone who lives here is used to a lot of driving for weddings. There is no public transportation so if you fly, you rent a car.

 

My brothrt did run his 8 passenger van between the church and reception for our dd's wedding to help out some of the out of towners.

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Tell them to put the video on YouTube so you can be there in spirit. Take the money you save, and go on a nice vacation.

 

This.   +1    The mention of Alcohol was something I'd thought about earlier. If there is any consumption of alcoholic beverages, during the Reception, driving after that, late at night, and tired, would be extremely dangerous, and in a state that has laws like Nevada, could end up with one in jail,  for a year ir two, and a huge fine.  Not a good idea.

 

I had been thinking earlier. Add up all of the costs for airline fares, hotels, rental car, meals, etc.  Get the total of that, plus a nice gift.  Then, multiply that by 10% and send them a gift that costs that 10%    Take the rest and spend it on a family vacation or something.  

 

The planning does not seem to have taken the guests into consideration. Especially the ones like the OP and her family who do not live nearby.

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<snip>

Also check the invitation to make sure your children are indeed invited. Unless specifically clarified with the first names of the cousins or "Mr and Mrs so and so and family" the invite might be for you and hubby only.

 

LOL of course I know they are invited.  I wouldn't be going through all this decision-making if I didn't know they were invited!    :lol:  :lol:   It would make things much easier if they weren't!   (Though I would probably not go without them unless I went alone. They are older teens but neither wants to be home alone yet with us that far away.)  

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LOL of course I know they are invited.  I wouldn't be going through all this decision-making if I didn't know they were invited!    :lol:  :lol:   It would make things much easier if they weren't!   (Though I would probably not go without them unless I went alone. They are older teens but neither wants to be home alone yet with us that far away.)  

Sorry, I didn't mean to be condescending. We've had several threads here where people were confused and planning on taking their entire family and then ended up learning last minute that it was only for the exactly names on the invitation.

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Fwiw, 800 miles would deter/prohibit my attendance before 30 or 50 additional ones would.  I love family members near and far, but I doubt I would ever travel 800 miles for a wedding.  I know.  I'm horrible.  

 

Yeah, that would be a big deterrence for me, as well. And I wouldn't be offended if my friends and family who lived that far away couldn't come to my wedding.

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We've had far away weddings we've skipped and far away weddings we've gone to. I think it makes a big difference if this is a teeny tiny wedding where the relative is VERY important to you, or if it's a large wedding. 

 

Your kids will probably have things to do this summer, and they're probably not as attached to the relative as you are. 800 miles is a bit, but not THAT much. You could fly or drive, depending on your mood. I would decide based on how far from the airport you'd have to go to get to the venue. If you'll have to drive another 2 hours once you land, just drive it. If flying will get you close quickly (not more than one flight change), then that's fine. And I would leave your kids. It can be special for just you and your dh. 

 

And no, I would not spend that much to go JUST to that wedding, no way, no way. I'll be spending that much, but we're gonna hit DISNEY baby. Like is there a vacation you want to have? Can you go there, rent an RV, spend the week doing something amazing, and then go to the wedding? That would be fine. But I would not pay that much for adult children to go to a wedding of a secondary relative. You need to be getting a whole family vacation out of it, something worthwhile.

Edited by OhElizabeth
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Just a lurker here, but if it were me, I would rent an RV to drive to the ceremony. You can stay where you want, your hotel covers the RV rental, and it's just an awesome way to travel. One of my kids favorite vacations ever was the year we rented an RV and did a tour of Arizona/Grand Canyon/ Sedona.

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Just a lurker here, but if it were me, I would rent an RV to drive to the ceremony. You can stay where you want, your hotel covers the RV rental, and it's just an awesome way to travel. One of my kids favorite vacations ever was the year we rented an RV and did a tour of Arizona/Grand Canyon/ Sedona.

smart

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We chose a pretty location 20 miles out of a city, so I get how it could seem like a long drive if you've never lived in a small town, but 30 miles might be 25 minutes away, depending on speed limits.  When there's open country and no traffic it takes much longer than driving 40 blocks in a large city. 

 

Check google maps.  It might be a much shorter drive than you think.

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