Wedding Wednesday: Transatlantic Considerations

Okay, this isn't the most creative title for a Wedding Wednesday post ever - unlike yesterday's post, which is still cracking me up.  ("Danger's my middle name...")  I wasn't sure what else to say, though, as it's sort of a catch-all for everything we have to take into account due to the transatlantic nature of our engagement and marriage.  We've touched on some of this over the past few weeks, but I wanted to take a day to focus on some of the details that set a destination wedding apart from the usual hometown celebration.

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Even though only half of the guest list is coming from the States, ours will be a destination wedding for every single person who RSVPs yes.  Our venue is a 2 hour train ride away from London, where most of our English friends are based - only Jon's immediate family lives in Suffolk.  Of course, the Brits only have to block out a day or two to join us, whereas the Americans will have to book flights and take more time off.

But also our wedding is on a bank holiday weekend in the UK.   A lot of people plan to go out of town at the end of August, and we want to claim space on the calendar as far ahead as possible.

Both of these facts contributed to our decision to go by a revised timeline so that we could make life as easy as possible for our guests.  Usually, Save the Date cards are sent six to eight months ahead of time, but we posted ours at the end of November and beginning of December - nine months before the wedding.  We aim to have the invitations out by May 1, which is nearly four months in advance rather than the recommended six to eight weeks.  We'll also be requesting that RSVPs come in a bit earlier than usual.

We really do hope this helps our guests, especially those who need the time to look for plane tickets they can afford!

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The one thing we have no idea how to prepare for is our rate of acceptance.  Wedding websites generally agree that you can expect 10-20% of your list to decline your invitation, which would mean that we'd have 110-124 guests with us for the weekend.  However, the predictions vary widely for destination weddings - some say that, because you're giving people much more notice and they'll treat your wedding as a holiday, you should plan for 100% acceptance; others say that, because of the costs and travel time involved, you can assume 50% acceptance.  Obviously, there's a huge difference between those two possibilities.

I've heard horror stories about whole tables of guests not showing up having RSVPd yes as well as whole tables of guests arriving not having RSVPd at all.  Maybe I'm being naïve, but I don't think that this will be a huge problem for us as everyone has to plan to attend (or not) our wedding well in advance.

And, actually, we've already gotten a few solid replies just from the Save the Dates.  We have one friend coming from Australia who booked her flight back to London last week, and two friends who know that they won't be able to come because of school and work commitments.  I wondered if it would be bad etiquette to ask for RSVPs on the Save the Dates - apparently it can be done but isn't really the thing to do, if you know what I mean - because the earlier we get a good idea of numbers the sooner we can finalize the other pieces of the wedding.  But I'm learning that you just have to be patient for so many wedding-related things!

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If any of you have any experience with acceptance rates for destination weddings - or, really, with any of our transatlantic considerations - please leave me a comment of wisdom!  We could really use some help here.  After all, we've never done this before!

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