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Jewish World Review July 28, 2005 / 21 Tammuz, 5765 Divorce me from these weddings By Lenore Skenazy
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Did I drag you along on my honeymoon? Insist you come with us to Mexico and laugh by the pool? Did I ask you to drain your savings, beg your boss for time off and warn you that I would be eternally offended if you didn't come?
Of course not. How rude! But that's just what thousands of couples are doing today. Only thing is, they don't call these events "honeymoons." They call them "destination weddings."
The idea, however, is the same: A couple discovers an exotic locale where they want to begin their married life. But instead of getting hitched in some convenient location and then jetting off, they invite their loved ones to join them on Maui or Martinique or Mars for the pleasure of attending their nuptials.
Naturally, the couples don't think they are being inconsiderate. They think they are offering their guests a dream vacation that just happens to be their dream on the guests' vacation time. And dime.
Those of us less starry-eyed are starting to see red. A letter to Harriet Cole, New York Daily News advice columnist, put it bluntly: The writer's New York nephew had decided to get married in Italy. Weren't the bride and groom obliged to help pay their guests' way?
Harriet's answer: No. Which is a pity, because this selfish scenario is growing.
"We did a survey recently," says Diane Forte, editor of Bridal Guide, "and, gosh, 24.3% of our readers — that's a LOT of readers — say they are planning or considering a destination wedding." Forte assumes most of them got the idea by seeing celebrities slip off to remote resorts to wed. Pretty soon workaday couples started thinking that they, too, deserved a People magazine-worthy affair.
Go to any wedding planning Web site and you'll be flooded with talking points pushing this trend: Destination weddings allow the couple to spend days with family and friends. Planning an event so far away keeps family meddling to a minimum. (Yes, the same family that the couple is looking forward to spending days and days with.)
Somehow an "I do" under the palms is considered more original than an "I do" at the parish.
But, most saliently, destination weddings are actually cheaper than local ones.
For the people throwing the wedding, that is.
Whereas stateside nuptials can run $40,000, weddings in picturesque poverty cost far less. And considering the guest list gets pared, that's less again.
"But he said, 'No,'" she said, smiling to her new husband.
"I wanted everybody in my family to be at the wedding," Rodney Radford said simply. He promised his wife a lovely, local wedding instead.
Now Tammra is extremely glad that's what she got — particularly because a hurricane was heading for St. Thomas on the day they would have been wed there.
Which is not to say that fate frowns on destination weddings. Just that most of us maxed-out, vacation-limited, don't-wanna-sip-daiquiris-for-four-days-with-your-maid-of-honor invitees sure do.
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JWR contributor Lenore Skenazy is a columnist for The New York Daily News. Comment by clicking here. © 2005, NY Daily News |
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