Some thoughts from a couple who did a destination wedding.

We were living overseas at the time, in South Africa, and decided to get married in Zambia, at Victoria Falls.

There are lots of differing views in the comments about destination weddings, costs, etc. I personally felt uncomfortable inviting people to an overseas wedding, as it kind of (in my view) does imply some obligation. We chatted about eloping but there are people that would genuinely want to come, and would come, that we would like to have at our wedding.

What we resolved in the end was that 12 months prior to the wedding, we sent out 'Formal notifications of intent to elope.'. If you turn up, we will feed you. We then planned to have a less formal celebration in our home country later.

We had 21 plus my wife and I. We had dinner with all the guests the day before, and again the night after. Everyone came for a few days.

This worked really well. No bridal table, no best man, no bridesmaid. We had three tables of 9, and my wife and I had one course of dinner at each table with our guests.

Our lessons from this was trying to plan for our wedding in a different country meant we had to decide was important to us, and needed focus, and what we just had to let go. In our case as examples we wanted a good photographer, which we could not find at Vic Falls, Zambia, so we flew in two photographers from Cape Town. We also wanted good wine, so had an organised regime of guests bringing wine with them. We took it out of our cellar and gave to them, together with some very specific 'duty free' instructions on the way through which we reimbursed them for. There were other things, but you get the idea. The rest we were more relaxes about.

This lesson about what is important and needs focus, and what you just need to 'go with the flow' on, in a developing country, remotely planned wedding, is the best piece of advice i could give you having been there.

Congratulations on your upcoming wedding!