You spend months, sometimes years, planning your wedding celebration and obsessing over every single detail. Finding the venue, what kinds of florals, curating a delicious menu, hunting down the best available photographer to capture the day and creating the perfect wedding design and color palette.

Then the wedding day finally arrives. You blink and suddenly the DJ is playing the last song.

A standard wedding reception lasts about five hours. And honestly? Five hours is never enough time to celebrate a lifetime.

If you’ve been feeling like a traditional five hour wedding timeline doesn’t feel like you, you aren’t alone. That exact feeling is why I am so deeply passionate about destination weddings.

What a "Destination" Wedding Actually Means

When people hear "destination wedding," they usually picture a tropical beach somewhere. But a destination wedding can be anything from a gorgeous local getaway just a few hours away, a flight to another state or an international celebration.

Instead of wrapping everything into a single evening a destination wedding can typically span from 3 to 5 days packed with activities, festivities and parties. It gives you the space to create core memories while allowing you to actually spend quality time with the family and friends who traveled to celebrate you.

As an avid traveler, there's something magical about being immersed in a new location or culture. Traveling opens the doors to completely new experiences, flavors and design inspiration which is exactly why when it came to my own wedding, a local New England five-hour evening was never going to cut it.

Proof of Concept: My Palm Springs Wedding Weekend

My now-husband and I decided on a destination wedding in Palm Springs, California. It was where we first truly connected, so it made perfect sense! Plus, I had always dreamed of hosting my wedding in California.

Because my husband is Canadian (from British Columbia) and I’m from Massachusetts, everyone had to fly in to celebrate. I wanted to make sure our people felt incredibly welcomed and taken care of from the second they arrived.

To ease everyone into "vacay mode" and combat the jet lag we greeted guests with a custom bag of goodies tailored to Palm Springs:

The Essentials: Tortilla chips and gourmet salsa paired with margaritas for an instant happy hour because we all know that desert life runs on a good happy hour!

Our Favorites: Homemade pop-tarts from Wilma & Frieda’s and hydration kits for that dry hot desert sun.
The Local Touch: Poolside magazines, tourism guides, and a custom California photography print from my brother’s shop as a meaningful keepsake.

The Itinerary:

Instead of a rigid schedule, we let the weekend breathe. Earlier in the week, we hosted activities and dinners for our family and wedding party. For my crew I booked a private spa day in Desert Hot Springs and for Jason’s crew they hit the course at PGA West. The night before the wedding, we hosted a rehearsal dinner at a rooftop restaurant overlooking Mount San Jacinto, then invited all of our guests to join us afterward for cocktails under the stars.

On the wedding day, the energy was electric. We kept the celebration going with an after-party at our local favorite, Boozehounds, complete with late-night bites followed by an after-after-party back at the estate for the night owls who weren't quite ready to call it a night, where my brother took over as DJ.

And, the next day we opted for an afternoon pool party back at the estate instead of a formal morning brunch. Because frankly, no one wants to set an alarm after two consecutive after-parties. To wrap up the trip, some guests departed on Monday, while those who stayed joined us for wine tastings in nearby Temecula.

We kept our guest list small, only inviting 90 and having just over 60 attend allowed us to actually enjoy everyone’s company. Years later, our family and friends still talk about how much fun it was because it didn’t just feel like a wedding; it felt like an epic reunion.

The Ultimate Expression of Hospitality

When you choose a traditional local wedding, everyone is still bound by their everyday routines. As the couple, you’re usually caught in a whirlwind on the wedding day rushing from getting ready to photos to the ceremony, then trying to grab a bite of food while playing catch-up with 150 people. And yet, you rarely get more than a two-minute passing conversation with the people who mean the most to you.

A destination wedding completely allows you to have more than just one day with the people you love most.

Formalities melt away. The strict, packed one day timeline gets replaced with multi-day timelines with casual welcome cocktails, private tours and charters, morning coffees by the pool and late-night conversations that aren't cut short by a venue curfew.

Time actually slows down. Because the itinerary has room to breathe, you aren’t just tied to one 5-hour window. You actually get to live your wedding weekend with your favorite people.

Sometimes couples worry that asking guests to travel is too big of an ask. But honestly? It is always up to your guests to decide what works for them. Even if you host a local wedding there will always be friends or family flying in from out of town who need to travel anyway.

When it is intentionally planned, a destination wedding isn’t an inconvenience, it's the highest level of hospitality you can offer.

A destination wedding isn’t just about a beautiful backdrop. It’s about taking your core crew, skipping the casual acquaintances or family you haven’t seen or spoken to in years and giving your favorite people a shared adventure they never want to end.

Let’s Plan Your Destination Wedding

For my destination clients, we have custom-designed everything from private wine tastings and chartered boat days to mountain ski days, casual pizza parties and private historic tours.

My obsession with travel, paired with 15+ years of wedding planning and design experience, means I know exactly how to manage out-of-town vendors, contracts and shifting time zones so you don't have to take on a second full-time job.

Have I sold you yet?

If you want to skip the old-school wedding clichés and make the celebration last as long as humanly possible, it’s time to double-check those passports. Let’s create an epic destination celebration your people will be talking about for decades.

Let's Chat Today!

Why Destination Weddings? (Because Five Hours is Never Enough)

@cristenandcoevents