Manolo for the Brides

I envy those who have the guts to get married in some far flung dreamscape. Had I opted to tie the knot in, say, Italy or Australia, I probably would have been disowned. Besides the fact that my then step-mother does not fly — like, ever — there would have been no way my father could have afforded to shuttle all of my siblings out of the country and back. The passport fees alone might have broken him!

It was when planning pissed me off most that I dreamt of eating those non-refundable deposits and ditching the whole works, dragging The Beard off to some romantic spot, and garbling some foreign language vows. But alas, that’s one dream that would have come with scads of social penalties. If any relatives of mine are reading this, see what I do for you? Had I reeeaaaally wanted to, I could have hole up (and gotten married) somewhere like this:

Luckily, destination weddings aren’t always all they’re cracked up to be. Sure, there’s the ease of it all — find yourself an all-inclusive wedding package at some chic resort and you’re all set. And then there’s the evil joy of knowing that all the people you have to invite but don’t really want to invite will probably not attend. On top of everything else, you get to enjoy a mini-vacation or start your honeymoon right out of the gate! Is there even a downside?

Well, yes. There are indeed a few “cons” that balance out all of the “pros.”

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All right, so the decisions isn’t quite as simple as the title of this post implies. The Beard and I spent what money we had on a wedding, with the knowledge that money for a fabulous Costa Rican vacation would appear later. We did not anticipate, however, that the house we planned to stay at would get leased out for two whole years. You could say that our honeymoon plans have been tabled in the long term, in part because we wanted to make sure that my huge family and his little one would be with us when we wed.

I was inspired to think about this after a friend suggested I check out an older post on his blog, Travel Plan Idea:

This is actually a homework assignment for students in my debate class, but regular readers are welcome to play. The topic is eloping and splurging on a honeymoon (this includes destination weddings) vs. spending a bunch of money on a traditional wedding and spending comparatively less money on the honeymoon. For example, I barely remember my wedding reception — it was fine but nothing special compared to my nine week honeymoon in Italy. However, my sister went for the big wedding reception because she wanted to share her wedding day with as many friends and family members as possible.

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