This was a first wedding and our bride and groom more or less polled their friends and family in advance of the decisions being made and the invitations going out. Once the choice was made they only invited immediate family and extremely close and long-time friends with personal notes to all 'that as much as they would like to have them there, they understood that in all cases it might not be possible and they would look forward to celebrating the event at home with them after the fact'.

And as I said, had they done the wedding in NYC - they could NOT have gotten away with doing it this way as there would have been business associates and co-workers to be invited and the list just goes on and on and still the expense of staying in the City and all.

I do agree that destination weddings can be a very costly imposition on friends and family but most couples go into it knowing they have to accept and understand that many who would otherwise wish to attend might not be able to do so.

And the young weddings we witnessed that happened during the weekend we were there for our bride and groom were genuinely sad affairs. In one case there were only the bride and groom and two sets of parents - but I'm sure this is what the couple wanted and no criticism here, but we did feel a little sad for them when we were all having such a great time at our wedding.

When it comes to second marriages, personally speaking, it's a whole different ball game and whatever works is good.