Q: I just got engaged to an amazing man that I love. We’re so excited to be married. We are not excited about trying to plan it. This is largely because as millennials who have moved around a lot for school and work, the geography is a logistical nightmare. So where do we get married?
My parents are from the States, but shortly after they were married they moved to a different country for my dad’s job. I was born there and lived there until I was eighteen. After high school I moved to the States for college and then moved across the country for a job when I graduated. This is where I met my fiancé and still live now. My parents and younger siblings all live abroad. My fiancé is also not from the place we’re currently living—he was born and raised in one place, went to college somewhere else, and then moved here for a job. His parents divorced and moved to two different places—neither lives anywhere near where he grew up.
I know that traditionally a wedding is held wherever the bride is from, and most of my life when I’ve thought about my wedding I’ve pictured it in the country where I was born and raised. Everyone expects us to get married there, and a lot of people would be hurt and disappointed if we didn’t. I would honestly love to be married there—I still consider it my home. However, I haven’t lived there for years, I don’t live there now, so I’d have to plan everything long distance. Also, weddings are way more expensive there, and I feel bad asking all of our American family and friends to travel so far and spend so much money to come to our wedding (a lot of them wouldn’t be able to come).
The next logical plan seems to be to get married where we live now. However, we’ve only lived here two years and we don’t know a ton of people here (making friends after college is HARD). None of the family and friends that we want at our wedding live anywhere near here. Neither of us really likes living here, both for culture and climate reasons. We are only here because of specific career and educational opportunities, and as soon as we are done with those we’ll be out of here. This place just doesn’t feel like home.
The only other options seem to be where he’s from (he hasn’t lived there for ten years), where his parents live now (neither of us have ever lived there), a destination wedding (which all of our friends and family would be upset with or annoyed by, and neither of us has the time or resources to deal with), or an elopement (which neither of us wants to do).
People keep telling us we should just have two weddings in two different places, or get married somewhere and just have a reception somewhere else. Setting aside the fact I’m completely stressed out about planning one event, and the thought of having two makes me want to pull my hair out. Who gets the first wedding and who gets the second wedding/reception? How do we keep the people who don’t get the “real” wedding from getting hurt or angry?
We just started planning, and it’s already so complicated that I want to pull my hair out. All we want is a nice chill wedding with the people that we love. Where do we get married? Help!
If you have family and friends SCATTERED EVERYWHERE, how did you decide where to get married?
