After 10.5 years of dating, I decided to pop the question. It was nothing fancy, but I was still nervous trying to find the courage to ask her. Even after a decade, I didn’t think I would feel so ill leading up to the big moment.
When we let our family and friends know about our engagement, most were happy, yet many of them were quick to say, “Well it’s about time”. I never really understood why anyone needs to rush into marriage, especially if both people are committed for the rest of their lives. Being in a relationship with someone for over a decade there are a few things that separates couples like us from couples who get married within a few years from their first date. Here are some of the reasons that has convinced us to avoid getting married locally:
- Living together for many years, we realize that we really don’t need a traditional gift registry. We have most, if not all of the necessities that make up our home; therefore, asking our guests to buy us goodies from Home Sense is wasteful.
- We have endured and overcome adversity that many couples may never have to face. Through hardship we definitely know what we like, who we like to spend our time with, and how we spend our limited time. Truth is, we love to travel!
- Waiting to get married, we have a significant advantage of attending various weddings of numerous family and friends. This allows us to be very critical of how we want to celebrate our wedding,
- Sharing financial responsibilities in our household (since day one of moving in together) has helped us become very mature with how we plan our finances.
- Over the past decade we have seen our social circles change significantly. We have concluded that as time passes our existing friendships will either strengthen or discontinue; therefore, there is no point worrying who we might indirectly offend today as they may be gone tomorrow.
One thing that we found was troubling, is that many of our friends who recently got married never went on a honeymoon. After crunching initial costs for a local wedding, we would need to save up for a year and a half. Considering the reasons above, it was difficult for both of us to justify spending $15,000 to $25,000 for a huge party and have nothing to show for. Therefore, we concluded that a destination wedding would be best.
We both understand that asking friends and family to travel to Europe is asking a lot. We also know that many of our guests hardly ever get a chance to travel and wish they could have the opportunity to see something new. However, we completely understand if it is too much for an individual to afford; therefore, we plan on having a huge BBQ before we depart. Our entire wedding will be a fraction of the cost had we stayed at home, and we would have plenty left over for a 6 week honeymoon traveling through Western Europe.
Most married couples tell us that having a destination wedding is an amazing idea. Some have told us that they can’t remember who attended their wedding, and worse they had a difficult time identifying guests in photos. Having a destination wedding is a win win situation, as we will be saving lots of money, while knocking off several things off of our bucket list.
Stay tuned I will have more details regarding my destination wedding, as we get closer to the date.
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