DEAR SOMEONE ELSE’S MOM: My son and his fiancée just set the date and destination for their wedding. I am fine with the date, but the destination is a Caribbean island I never even heard of before they picked it. I started looking up plane fare and other details and when I say there’s nothing there, there’s nothing there. Everyone and everything will have to be brought to the location from another island.
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This is their choice, and we’re lucky that the bride’s family is picking up most of the tab for the wedding itself, but we want to have friends and relatives from our side at the event, and I can’t even begin to imagine how I am going to ask them to put out a ton of money to attend. The flight alone will be several hundred dollars a person from where most of us live.
I don’t know my future daughter-in-law’s family very well, and I feel funny saying something to her. Do I tell my son how nuts I think all of this is from the guests’ perspective? I feel embarrassed just thinking of asking people, and yet don’t want to offend anyone by NOT asking. --- WHY COULDN’T THEY ELOPE?
DEAR WHY COULDN’T THEY ELOPE?: I understand your discomfort. It puts you in a tough situation, but I think when the time comes, you need to extend the invitation and accept this destination wedding will simply not be the destination for everyone.
Before things get too far, you need to share your concerns openly with your son and your future daughter-in-law. If they’re set on this plan, you might offer to hold a celebration honoring the couple after the wedding for your close family and friends who can’t make the trip for the main event.