Is a wedding venue with a two-hour drive too far for guests?
Venues located two hours away from guests or accommodations lead to much higher RSVP decline rates and cause people to leave receptions early. Families facing this kind of long travel time will either need to book local hotels or skip major portions of the event entirely.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Getting a hotel room nearby
- 2Leaving the reception early
- 3Declining the invitation
- 4Waiting to see what is best in terms of costs regarding shipping versus traveling with items
- 5Bringing extra items along when traveling if needed rather than shipping them ahead
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“hi all do you think it’s okay to have a wedding venue with 2 hours travel time? most of my guests will be families anyways.”source ↗
“Needing to travel two hours back from the location to accommodations after the wedding would be batshit insane.”source ↗
“I think you might have a higher decline rate than if it was in town, or people leaving earlier, especially if most of your guests are families.”source ↗
“Like it takes 2 hours to get to the venue? Most people will either get a hotel or leave the reception early.”source ↗
“We normally travel once a year so if we need to bring something like gifts we just bring them with us. But with our wedding it’s going to be more things then we are use to.”source ↗
“I just don’t want to be rude and have a registry if it’s not common for destination weddings.”source ↗
“My other question is, is it easier to buy things ahead of time and ship it to a family member who lives in Mexico or to just bring it with us when we decide to travel?”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
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- 2How to schedule a legal marriage before a destination wedding
- 4How to handle wedding planning when you find out you're pregnant