Going Off To Get Married

By Pamela Paul

When Bernadine Rivera and Kevin Campion get married next spring, they won't do it in Lomita, Calif., where she lives, or in nearby La Mirada, where he lives. They'll do it in Paris before a dozen friends and family members. Rivera, 46, and Campion, 47, plan to exchange vows in one of the city's historic churches (for legal reasons, they will first have a quick ceremony Stateside) and take their guests to dinner at a three-star restaurant before embarking on a European honeymoon. "What could be more romantic than a wedding in Paris!" says Rivera.

Traveling afar on the wedding day used to mean one of two things: elopement or honeymoon. But today the lines between traditional wedding, elopement and honeymoon have blurred as more couples incorporate aspects of each into the big day. Destination weddings, or "weddingmoons"--in which couples invite their nearest and dearest to jet off to an island beach, accompany them abroad or gather at some other favorite place--have become so popular that an entire industry has arisen. Destination-wedding planners, custom-wedding packages offered by resorts and cruise lines, and dedicated websites providing links to long-distance services are now available to help couples plan their weddings-to-go.

"Destination weddings have become a huge trend because weddings overall are much more personalized," says Darcy Miller, editorial director of Martha Stewart Weddings. "Nobody wants a cookie-cutter occasion. Couples want their wedding somewhere special and meaningful--where they met, where they spent childhood summers, or a fun vacation spot where everyone can turn the wedding into a holiday."

Moreover, the days when a girl lived with Mom and Dad before marrying the boy next door are long gone, and with them the ease of gathering guests for a local wedding. Many young people live far from their hometown, and their parents may also have moved. For a bride who grew up in Nebraska, attended college in Chicago and has lived in California, New York and Arizona, her current residence may seem less than a home base. Chances are, no matter where a couple holds a wedding these days, people will have to travel to attend, so it makes sense to choose a special place that everyone will enjoy.

Global insecurity and other travel concerns haven't slowed the long-distance wedding march. Couples are saying their "I dos" in Europe, Mexico, Hawaii and California's wine country, but the most popular destinations seem to be Florida and the Caribbean. Resorts and wedding planners in both areas report growth rates of 40% to 80% over the past two years. The Westin St. John Resort & Villas was host to 176 weddings in 2002, more than double the number in 2001. Little Palm Island Resort & Spa, off the Florida Keys, welcomed only 12 weddings in 1997 but had 153 last year, and bookings are up 80% for 2003.

A destination wedding may seem like the next iteration in the extravagant trend that ushered in mega-weddings, but most couples cite their desire for an intimate and informal affair as a reason to marry afar. Travel costs whittle down the invite list, making a destination wedding less expensive than a hometown affair, especially for couples from big cities, where venue and vendor rates have soared. Because guests are expected to pay for their travel and lodging (in addition to gifts, bridesmaid dresses and so forth), "will attends" are more likely to include only the most committed family members and friends. Some couples try to ease the financial burden by offering paid hotel rooms or frequent-flyer miles to those who might otherwise be unable to come.

David and Jennifer Hammer figured a wedding at home in Houston would be a logistical nightmare. Between siblings and stepsiblings, the wedding party would balloon to 15 people, the full wedding to 300--and the event, they estimated, would set them back $30,000 or more. The Hammers chose instead to wed barefoot on Smathers Beach in Key West, Fla., in front of 72 close friends and family members, for one-third the cost. "No matter where we had a wedding, half my family would have had to travel," says David, 28. "Why not have everyone take off for a week to somewhere truly beautiful and fun?"

For others, maxed out on the black-tie, hotel or banquet-hall reception, a "been there, done that" attitude informs their decision. And couples who marry later in life, or for a second time, may be especially eager to have an experience different from the myriad other weddings they have attended or participated in. For Roger Wendt, 53, and Eva Conti, 41, musicians from Rivervale, N.J., their January wedding in the Bahamas was a conscious departure from his previous two marriages and her first. "Eva and I are adults who have both been married before and have lived together," Wendt explains. "We wanted to get married, but we certainly didn't want the big traditional ceremony again."

Avoiding a hometown wedding can make the event less about other people--Mom's business partners, Dad's second cousin--and more about the bride and groom. Choosing neutral territory can also mitigate family conflicts. Marta Lowe, 32, who lives in Maryland, got married on a farm in Vermont rather than in her hometown, Olympia, Wash., where she feared her estranged divorced parents would spoil the atmosphere. "If I got married where I grew up, people would have come just to glare at each other," Lowe says. With rehearsal dinner and postwedding brunch the new norm, brides and grooms today spend as long as four days with their guests, says Millie Martini Bratten, editor in chief of Bride's magazine. "People live such busy lives that to have a wedding where everyone flies in from across the country and arrives at 4 p.m., only to leave by midnight, doesn't make sense," explains Mary Ellen Murphy, a destination-wedding planner based in Yountville, Calif. "If you tack on a few extra days and make it a vacation for everyone, you can actually spend time together. You may not get that opportunity again."

Many couples opt for locations that not only are congenial to a ceremony but also offer opportunities to golf, fish, indulge in a spa treatment or explore another culture. Avid scuba divers Stephanie Dowling, 29, and Chad Eschmeyer, 28, of Scottsdale, Ariz., plan for their May 2004 wedding in the Virgin Islands to include a day of snorkeling and diving. They originally anticipated 15 guests. Now 50 guests, many of them fellow divers, are scheduled to stay in a resort the couple selected over the Internet for a week of activities, including celebrations of Cinco de Mayo, the Mexican festival the two celebrate in their native Southwest. "Surprisingly, many of my friends have never been to a destination wedding," says Dowling, who was inspired by another friend's wedding in Turks and Caicos, in the Caribbean. "They think it's so unique, they wouldn't miss it for the world."

The selection of the place and the activities gives couples the chance to express their uniqueness and create their own world. Brooklyn-based artists Amy Madden, 29, and Christopher Quirk, 41, who met as students in Rome, got married privately in New York City in September 2002, and six weeks later they staged a wedding that reflected their artistic interests at the Castello di Montegufoni, a castle in the Tuscan countryside. Sixty guests stayed in the castle for a week, during which friends and family joined the couple in reciting poetry and enacting scenes from The Decameron, Giovanni Boccaccio's 14th century collection of fables, in the castle's theater. On the wedding day, Quirk's brother, a drummer, led the processional through the grounds while guests banged along on pots and pans. When they reached a hilltop olive grove, the guests formed a circle around the couple as one friend sang Ave Maria and another acted as "officiant." Afterward, everyone danced into the night to CDs the couple had created for the occasion.

But the locale need not be so exotic. Last September, Tera Davenport, 25, a nanny, and Eric Donahoo, 30, a construction worker, traveled from Santa Clara, Calif., to Arizona to marry at Rainbow Bridge National Monument on Lake Powell. Thirty-eight guests joined them for a two-hour boat trip and a 20-minute hike to the site, where the bride changed from shorts and a T shirt into her wedding dress. The ship's captain performed the ceremony, after which the couple released butterflies, a local Native American tradition. The following day, Tera and Eric rented a houseboat with nine friends for a group honeymoon. "Not only did we first meet on Lake Powell, we own a boat and love the outdoors," says Tera. "Our destination wedding fit us perfectly."