by Kimberley Heit

Created on: December 09, 2008   Last Updated: May 20, 2012

You should be sincerely flattered if people spend the time, money and effort to travel from out of town to attend your wedding. Why not repay the favor by showing your long distance wedding guests some extra consideration. This can involve things like; extra communication and involvement, assistance with travel planning and any other nice extras you can come up with.

Communication

The first considerate thing you need to do for long distance wedding guests is to give them as much advance notice of your wedding date as possible. Many guests need to know early on so that they can save for the travel costs and organize leave from work. Hitting them with the standard invitation 6 weeks prior to the wedding would be unfair. Instead send a save the date card or telephone them personally shortly after you become engaged and set a date.

Realize that if you are inviting relatives from out of town who have young children that you will seriously need to consider including their children also. It would be pretty difficult for them to arrange for people to look after them. If you really don't want children at the reception then why not organize on site babysitting.

It is also nice to continue to keep in touch with out of town wedding guests in the lead up to the wedding. This could be facilitated via a wedding website or you could mail out a newsletter. A wedding website is a great place to provide not only wedding information, but information on the area for out of town guests. One of the things you should communicate to your long distance guests is what your areas weather is like when they will be coming. Provide directions maps and other information on the area also.

The bride and groom tend to have a lot to do close to the wedding so it is a good idea to have someone else coordinate out of town wedding guests. Provide contact numbers for people that guests can contact if they are uncertain about something to do with wedding events or the area.

Involvement

For some people it will be a very big deal to travel long distance for a wedding so they will probably want to make the most of it. Even if you can't be everywhere try to facilitate a few opportunities for family and friends to catch up. Out of town guests should also be honored with an invitation to any parties and showers that fall near the wedding date such as the rehearsal dinner. If you can't afford a lot don't worry a casual barbeque dinner is a perfectly acceptable option.

Travel Arrangements

Out of town guests

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>