Destination weddings offer a fabulous way to tie the knot in a beautiful place, all while enjoying a great vacation and making memories with those you love the most! .. but what is a destination wedding?

Honestly, there are many schools of thought on this topic. Officially, a destination wedding is just one where you get married outside of your town – usually there’s some kind of official distance radius involved, and it typically requires you to drive or fly out to the spot where you’ll get hitched. 

But in my world, a destination wedding is one that takes place in a fabulous, international vacation destination – and the ones that I plan for couples like you specifically take place in Mexico and the Caribbean (and sometimes places like Costa Rica and Colombia)

All Inclusive Destination Weddings

I specialize in destination weddings at all-inclusive resorts – these are really a fantastic value and experience for everyone involved! The on-site wedding team handles absolutely everything for you, so you can do as little as choosing a package, setting a date, and making just a few small decisions if you want! (you can also be very involved and make lots of choices if that’s more your style!). 

And the value for both you and your guests is fantastic if you choose to have a destination wedding at an all-inclusive resort. They’ll just have to pay for their room, transportation, and flight.. And they get a fun and beautiful vacation, unlimited food and drinks, all the amenities they can dream of, AND attend your gorgeous wedding!!

Sometimes, I have wedding couples, along with their wedding party, and wedding guests who all stay and vacation at an all-inclusive resort, and then maybe head out to an off-site location for the actual wedding itself. (after all, I am a travel advisor! 😉 )

Why have a destination wedding?

Destination weddings are simply my FAVORITE thing, because (at least in my mind) they slow down time!

What do I mean by that? No, they don’t actually slow down time – if I could pull that off, you’d better believe I’d be typing this from my overwater bungalow in Bora Bora!! 😉 

I believe that destination weddings offer a unique opportunity for wedding couples to slow down and truly enjoy the time at and surrounding their wedding day – both with each other, as well as with their friends and family. This is HUGE, because what they say about your wedding day is true- it does seem to go by in a flash! 

Destination Wedding vs. Traditional Wedding

My traditional, at-home wedding did this for SURE. The only thing I regretted about that day was that I didn’t have NEARLY enough time to spend with my guests, properly enjoy my food, spend enough time partying on the dance floor… annnd appreciate my brand new husband. Those 4 hours went by in an absolute flash. 

By contrast, my sister-in-law’s wedding just a few months later seemed luxuriously slow! We got to spend time with them both before and after the wedding. They came to the resort in Mexico a few days earlier and enjoyed a bit of rest & relaxation so they’d properly appreciate their wedding day! They had plenty of time to spend with each other, visit all the different groups of family and friends that traveled from near and far to see them tie the knot, and got to slow down and love every minute of their big day! 

So while there’s a lot to love about destination weddings, my absolute favorite part is that they seem to slow down time and let you really take in your wedding day (and week!) And after all, when you’re investing your hard-earned money in a wedding.. Don’t you want the experience to last, and truly be worth it?