How do I not be a burden?
Hi y’all,
I’ve seen horrible things said about destination weddings online, and now that I’m considering a wedding in Mexico, I don’t want to be a burden on my friends/family.
I’m not planning on getting married soon, but I hope to get married in the next few years. I don’t want to go into debt for a wedding, so I’m starting to brainstorm now and hopefully save some money to have a wedding that I’d love.
My bf and I don’t want anything big, so we’d probably keep it to 40/50 guests. However, everyone I want to be there is spread throughout the US, Mexico, Netherlands, UK, India, etc.
I was thinking of renting out an entire Hacienda in Mexico for a weekend (Fri-Sun) for my guests and I. The places I’m looking at would include food for the 3 days and cater the wedding along with housing everyone in the hacienda itself. The estimates I did for this would be less than one day in California with limited venue hours and no food, music, or lodging included.
My idea is that people could fly out Friday, reach the same airport, I would arrange a bus/car to pick everyone up, and they would stay at the hacienda for the 2 nights/3 days, then we would all head to the airport Sunday.
The costs for the hacienda rental, lodging for everyone, food/alcohol, and transportation to and from the airport would be covered by me, but the only cost that wouldn’t would be the flight.
I have some wealthy friends that I know would fly in a heartbeat and not think about it, but I’m not sure about everyone. I would pay for my and my boyfriend’s immediate family to fly out since I know they don’t make much money.
However, for the remainder, would it be ok to say something like “please don’t bring gifts, just yourself”.
I honestly don’t need gifts or anything, but I would want everyone invited to be there. I also know getting time off is difficult which is why I would keep it Friday-Sunday so people only have to miss one day ideally. And obviously all kids and everyone are obviously welcome.
An average round trip flight would be about 500 per person in the US and everyone else flying from elsewhere is either wealthy or family that I will be covering.
Is this a reasonable ask or is this too much of a burden for those that are not immediate family?