I was curious -- did holiday weddings work for out for the families as well as the bride and groom? What advice would they give to others? I reached out to real-life couples for the inside scoop.
This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. If you need to flag this entry as abusive, send us an email.

2015-11-29-1448822989-4249250-slub_jup550.jpeg

I used to think holiday weddings seemed kind of selfish. But after I spoke to my friend Francesca Baldassano one evening about her upcoming nuptials, it made a lot of sense. Her and her fiancé Erik would arrive to Maui with their immediate families, just in time to spend Christmas together, and get married a couple of days later. Then they'd cross the island to honeymoon in Hana, and spend New Year's Eve as husband and wife. Now that sounded like a good plan.

I was curious -- did holiday weddings work for out for the families as well as the bride and groom? What advice would they give to others? I reached out to real-life couples for the inside scoop.

Since both of our families live out of town, we wanted to have it during a time that most could take off from work and attend. We were able to have our wedding on Wednesday, stay in a fancy hotel nearby and then rejoin family Thursday for a huge Thanksgiving feast with our family before heading off to a winter wonderland honeymoon! We loved it!

Andy Edwards (Nov 2010)

My husband and I lived in San Francisco when we started planning our wedding in Monterrey, Mexico of 125 guests. He is from Brazil and so we planned it on the Thanksgiving Holiday so that we could make it easier for our guests to attend. Brazil celebrates Black Consciousness Day at the end of November, so it was perfect. We celebrated Thanksgiving dinner at the hotel and got married on November 29th. Everyone was relaxed, we incorporated the chocolate fall colors, and the night could not have been more perfect.

Melissa De Luna-Ribeiro (Nov 2008)

My husband and I were married on New Year's Eve and it was the best! It was at a small resort in Lake George, N.Y. and was twenty-something below zero. We even had the balloon drop at midnight! Most people spent the night, and we all had brunch together the next morning. My family thought it was fun, and gave a lot of them something to do.

Michelle Morton (Dec 1998)

Holiday Wedding Tips:

Do it at a place that takes care of everything for you. Great music, amazing food, and lots of good energy is all you need. (Melissa De Luna-Ribeiro).

Make sure to include a gift bag of essentials in each guest room, complete with your wedding brand on it (logo or names in font you used on your invitations). Using a drone to capture the beauty and scope of the location will provide beautiful visuals for post-wedding memories. (April Luca of Gold Sky Productions).

We had champagne centerpieces, noisemakers, hats and beads for all the guests and our save-the-dates were personalized noisemakers. (Andria Rosell of AndriaRosell.com).

Carly Cylinder is the owner of Flour LA, Inc, a bicoastal floral design studio, author of The Flower Chef published March 1, 2016, and is an avid travel writer. Follow her on Instagram @flourgal and @theflowerchef

Close

HuffPost Shopping’s Best Finds

MORE IN LIFE