How far from home would be too much of a pain to have the wedding?

Question

I need opinions on all this.

I live just a few miles outside of Boston. Our general area is very urbanized, making it difficult to find a suitable, fairly inexpensive garden wedding ceremony site (with inclement weather option, very important!!)

We've been searching for months, and we've not come up with a whole lot. The one place that we did come up with is out in western MA. I loooved the fountain they had.

http://www.stanleypark.org/gardens.aspx?g=arboretum

Without traffic it's 1.5 hours from home. We are city kids, so naturally we're not familar with the western portion of our state (because there's really not much out there). Will it be a pain in the butt to deal with vendors and such all the way out there? Can I have vendors closer to home, or do they only serve a specific area?

Another problem is that this is just a ceremony site. We'll have to look for a hall of some sort close to there. With not being familiar with that area, we might have a difficult time, or we may not.

Is this too far to ask guests to go? One side of my family is entirely in Eastern MA, the other side has some in Eastern MA, then NH, NY, D.C., CO, and CA. A few of them need to fly into logan(in boston)Most likely some of them would stay with my grandmother, and others in hotels. The ones flying in wouldn't have cars, so I guess they'd carpool with people? Is that reasonable? My fiance's family is in ME and NH, with a slight possiblity of a few of his other side of the family flying in from wisconsin (they don't have much $$).

Does all this sound reasonable to you or is this too far from home?

Answer 1

Well if its a small wedding or most of your guests can afford hotels then its not that bad.  Especially since destination weddings have become so popular.  Just make it as easy as possible and have it all in one place, reception and ceremony, so there is no additional travel.

There are other options other then western ma if you want to give me more info I can send you some suggestions

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Answer 2

It says on that website that you can have the reception there.  I would do that.  I don't think it's too far for a wedding.  People do it all the time.  The vendors will be used to that kind of thing, too.  It might be a good idea for you to arrange for some sort of transportation for the guests that won't have cars.  Maybe you could rent a few 16 passenger vans for the night so they can all go there together...

If it looks to be too much of a hassle, then just have it close to home.  You really don't want to inconvenience your guests too much.  I live in CO and we had our wedding 5 mins from our house...  Most people have their weddings in the mountains here, though, so we are used to having to drive a ways for weddings.

Answer 3

I thin it can be done if you want it and for those that are in the boston area they might have to incur extra for a hotel overnight, but at least you aren't obligating EVERYONE to have to fly in order to attend.

Since it is more than 1 hour from home, you would have to find not only a reception site in that area but also a hotel that your guests could book themselves at if they didn't want to drive all that way home.

My fiance & I moved to Central PA and both have alot of family in NJ.  We will be driving the 3+ hours for a wedding this fall (as we did last year).  And when we marry in 2009, our guests will be coming here.

One thing you do not mention is the age of the guests.  If you have alot of elderly or just older people attending, they may not want to go that far.  

I would suggest you have an open discussion with your nearest & dearest loved ones about your idea - - ask those who you wouldn't want to get married without them being there what their opinion is and if they would make the trip or not.  THAT should be how you decide this issue.  If you wouldn't want your grandmother to not attend, ask HER opinion about the traveling - if she says she would be there, then book it!