10 Reasons You Should Get Married Abroad

Many brides and grooms dream of the perfect destination wedding but are put off by some of the challenges asking friends and family to travel poses – so instead they try to be “sensible” and plan a local wedding that they are, ultimately, disappointed with. The thing you need to remember if your umming and ahhing about the logistics of a destination wedding is that this is your wedding day, one of the most important days of your life, and should you really have to be reasonable?

Nope! And you don’t need an excuse to get married abroad, either. Here are 10 great reasons why you should get married abroad.

You Don’t Have to Invite Everyone You Know 

Have you always dreamed of a huge wedding with hundreds of guests? If that idea fills you with dread instead of excitement, getting married abroad is a great excuse to only invite your nearest and dearest. If you’re lucky enough to have a huge circle of friends and family at home who would expect to be invited to your wedding, you can instantly cut the number down without offending anyone by simply taking your wedding abroad. 

If you’ve seriously considered eloping (or close to it, with just your immediate family), going abroad is the perfect way to do so. Instead of a huge wedding, have a private, romantic ceremony with just the two of you, or accompanied by an extremely small wedding party. During Mark and Jo’s Italy wedding they only took 7 guests with them. When you take your wedding abroad you have the opportunity to make it much more intimate, which is an extremely attractive proposition for those who want to avoid a reception party and just have an incredible dinner after with great local food. 

Roll On the Honeymoon 

If you don’t want to end up back at home in the days after your wedding, feeling a sense of anti-climax until you finally take off for your Honeymoon, taking your ceremony abroad is a great way to combine your wedding and honeymoon with a family holiday. There are hundreds of incredible private wedding venues you can hire and spend time far away from your lives at home for a week or two (or three!). 

This can be a great option if you have young kids you don’t want to be away from for too long but also want some one-on-one time with your new husband or wife; bring along your mum and dad and park the kids with them (hey, they’re getting a holiday with their grandchildren, right?) and travel around for a few days or a week while they stay elsewhere. Your children won’t feel left out and you don’t have to leave them for any longer than you want to. 

The Weather is Better 

When you take your wedding abroad you have a much better chance of perfect weather for your big day. While we get our share of hot clear days in the summer, the British weather is notoriously unpredictable, and you’ve probably driven past someone getting married on the only rainy Saturday in a July full of thirty-degree weather. They must be heartbroken! You can’t guarantee the weather anywhere, but the South of France, Spain, Italy, and other southern European destinations are all pretty reliable. When it comes to sunshine though one of my personal favourite locations is Tuscany. On long summer days the place has the most beautiful sunsets and can last for ages just like it did at Mark & Megans wedding at Borgo Corsignano. 

Only Option for a Beach Wedding 

Let’s be honest; you’d have to be a little crazy to have a beach wedding in the UK. There are some incredible images of couples on a windy beach in Cornwall, Scotland, or Ireland, but that is not a beach wedding. When you go abroad you can have the true beach wedding experience with azure waters, smooth golden sand, and later pictures at night as the lights from the reception glitter on the dark water behind you. If you’ve spent hours looking at beach wedding pictures on Pinterest, it’s time to make that dream a reality and there’s plenty of choices close by in Europe and further afield. 

You Can Get Married in the Winter 

Holding your wedding in the UK from October through to March (or even mid-April) can be pretty unpleasant. It’s dark, cold, and likely to be raining, windy, or even snowing. Not only will you have to shiver your way up the aisle without a coat on, but you could even have to put up with some guests struggling to reach the venue due to adverse weather. No one needs that. If you want to get married ASAP or have an excuse to escape the crappy weather, your wedding is a great reason to get out of the country and take a long honeymoon. 

You are also much less likely to have your wedding clash with other family events and holidays and your family will be more than happy to follow you to another country to take a break from the short days and cold weather. 

It’s Actually Easier to Organise 

Why? Because most venues that cater to English-speaking parties offer complete wedding planning packages and will be more than happy to ensure everything is just as you want it when you arrive. A planning package like this takes so much stress out of your wedding that you’ll feel awkward later when your friends moan about how stressful planning their own weddings are. That’s a pretty good problem to have. 

Great for Global Families 

If your family is scattered all around the globe it can be more convenient for everyone to come together in a beautiful location outside of the UK, and it may even be more affordable for them to do so. Fabiana & Adam’s families were split between Brazil and Australia. So they opted for a wedding at The Grand Hotel Timeo in Sicily. The perfect location for their families to meet. If you’ve not been to Taormina and your planning a destination wedding I’d check this place out for sure!

Your Wedding Won’t Look Like Everyone Else’s

There are some incredible venues available here in the UK (I’ve photographed some of the very best) but we can agree that without some serious creativity most English weddings look the same. They involve an old church, an old manor house, or a converted barn, and often a marquee – these can all be done extremely well, but imagine holding your wedding in Tuscany or among the mountainous grandeur of Lake Como. That’s certainly not the kind of wedding all your friends are having! 

It’s Acceptable for Guests to Pay 

One of the reasons we’re all happy to be invited to a wedding is the free food and (often) open bar provided by the bride and groom. Many couples stockpile the alcohol they’ll serve for months in advance so they don’t have to drop that money all at once right before the wedding. While you’ll probably still pay for food and drink for your guests abroad, you can also expect them to pay for their own tickets and board, if you choose to. Going back to our first point, this also means you won’t have as many mouths to feed and so you’ll spend less on food and drink, plus the venue can organise it all for you. 

Your Wedding Pictures 

Picture this (pun intended); you’ve had your beautiful wedding in the sun, all of your friends and family are talking about how much fun it was, and you’re back home after your honeymoon with the perfect golden tan. When you look up at the wall in your living room, hallway, dining room, or office you see the most breath-taking visuals of the memories you can hold on to forever. They weren’t taken on a dreary day in an English city (as much as we love those cities), they are the pictures of you and your loved ones on a beach in Sicily, in beautifully landscaped gardens in the south of France, or surrounded by rolling hills in Tuscany. In short, they are perfect. In fact as a wedding photographer that mostly shoots in the UK getting overseas gives me so much inspiration to make my award winning wedding photos. New locations provides plenty of new creative flow.

My clients who choose to get married under the sun abroad never have any regrets that they chose to do so, since the images they receive are like something out of a fairytale. If you’d like to learn more about how you can work with me for your destination wedding, don’t hesitate to contact me with your ideas and questions. To contact me just click here, fill out the form, and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.