Lately I have notice a growing trend toward destination weddings. According to a May 2018 survey from CompareCards.com by LendingTree, a destination wedding guest spends $1,421 on average, including travel, gifts and spending on personal items.
That number jumps to $2,514 for destination weddings outside of the U.S., with the actual travel costs estimated at $1,595 for an average of about five days. This seems rather expensive, especially to a guy, like me, who doesn’t enjoy giving up a few hours on a Saturday night for most of the weddings he attends.
Unfortunately, because of the expense involved with destination weddings, often the bride is disappointed by the number of her friends that will shell out the money to attend. Recently on Facebook one bride wrote:
“At the risk of sounding entitled, I have to vent today. When we invited our friends and family to our destination wedding in Thailand, only nine people RSVP’ed. Out of 150! I get it. Paying $3K to share my special day is too much for some of you. I’d pay for yours but whatever. When I changed the wedding to Hawaii and saved each of you $1K only seven RSVP’ed. Is that what you think of us? You can’t spare $2K to come share our happiness? I’m tempted to just elope and not let any of you be a part of our happiest day. This is it guys. You have three days to respond to our evites, or we’re deleting you off FB, and good luck keeping up with our lives then.”
Destination weddings sound great, and the pictures are amazing but at what expense to the guest, not to mention the stess on relationships? For most people, the location probably isn’t really the main focus of a wedding. I would hope that the focus would be on the bride and groom. Their joy isn’t in where they are married but rather whom they are marrying. Everything else should just complement the day.
There is one destination wedding I do plan to attend, and we are all invited. The groom has paid all the expenses, which is great because none of us could afford to attend without that. He has made all the arrangements, and some, like me, have already registered their attendance.
It is set up to be the most epic wedding ever. There will be a huge celebration that follows, and people from every nation will be in attendance. No gifts will be necessary because the groom’s father is giving everyone in attendace a gift of their own.
That wedding day is described like this: “Then I heard something like the voice of a vast multitude, like the sound of cascading waters, and like the rumbling of loud thunder, saying, Hallelujah because our Lord God, the Almighty, reigns! Let us be glad, rejoice and give him glory, because the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his bride has prepared herself. She was given fine linen to wear, bright and pure. For the fine linen represents the righteous acts of the saints. Then he said to me, Write: Blessed are those invited to the marriage feast of the Lamb! He also said to me, these words of God are true” (Rev. 19:6-9).
On that day, I will not be focused on the location and its amazing beauty but rather on the Groom, Jesus Christ my Lord. My focus will not be on those in attendance but rather soley on the Groom. Jesus paid the full price for my attendance. He invited me personally to join Him on that day, and His Father has given me eternal life, simply because I said yes to His invitation. So when I die or the Lord returns, Heaven is the destination but seeing JESUS CHRIST is my greatest desire! I pray that you will accept Jesus’ invitation and will be in attendance on that Great Wedding Day.
