The New Rules of Destination Weddings

Destination weddings have never been more popular or more misunderstood. Couples are increasingly choosing to trade the local banquet hall for a Swiss lakefront or a Scottish castle, and the industry is evolving fast to keep up. To understand what's really driving the trend, and how to navigate it smartly, we turned to Michele Fox Gott, founder of Center of Attention Events and Luxury Wedding Escapes, who has spent three decades planning celebrations around the globe.

Why Destination Weddings Are Booming

The demand is real. "Destination weddings are hotter than they've ever been," says Fox Gott, and she points to a confluence of factors fueling the surge.

Post-pandemic wanderlust is a big one. After years of staying close to home, couples and their guests are eager to travel, and a wedding gives everyone a reason to finally go. That shift in mindset has changed RSVPs, too. Rather than viewing a destination wedding as an inconvenience, guests increasingly treat it as a welcome vacation, which often means better turnout than couples expect. Add to that a generation of couples who are more adventurous and more tuned into social media, and the appeal of something visually stunning and uniquely personal becomes obvious.

Think Beyond the Obvious Destinations

Italy (Lake Como in particular) dominates the destination wedding conversation. But experts like Fox Gott caution couples against fixating on the marquee names without exploring the alternatives.

"Just up the way 20 minutes, you can go on the same water to Switzerland where the price is not like Como prices and they're way more flexible on how late you can be at night."

Switzerland isn't the only surprise on her list. Mexico offers luxury experiences where budgets stretch up to four times further. London's Dorchester comes in at nearly half the cost of a comparable Beverly Hills ballroom. Scotland's castles bring something Italy simply can't: Highland games, archery, and proximity to St. Andrews Golf Course.

The broader lesson: the "dream destination" couples have in mind and the destination that actually delivers their dream wedding are often different places.

Vetting Vendors Internationally

One of the biggest challenges in destination wedding planning is building a reliable vendor network abroad. Fox Gott's approach is straightforward: show up in person, and invest in relationships.

"Go visit the location and go to conferences and conventions that are global. That's how I first started to meet my network."

The relationships that result from that kind of face time tend to be genuine ones. When the Los Angeles fires broke out earlier this year, Fox Gott says she heard from more international colleagues than domestic ones.

Vetting, she emphasizes, works the same way internationally as it does at home. "Just like the United States, you've got to really vet people out," which often means visiting a destination multiple times and working closely with local tourism boards before recommending it to a couple.

Experiencing a Venue Before You Commit

One of the most persistent pain points in destination wedding planning is the ask couples face: commit to a venue, a caterer, and a team of vendors, often sight unseen, in a country they may have never visited.

Fox Gott's new venture, Luxury Wedding Escapes, is a direct response to that problem. The concept takes couples (or any travel pair: friends, a mother and daughter) on immersive, multi-hotel trips designed to let them experience potential venues as a guest before booking as a client.

"Every night they'll have a dinner as if they were doing a tasting at a hotel. Everyone's putting their best foot forward... A couple's usually excited for one tasting. Well, imagine you're going on an event where that's what you're doing every day with different chefs at different high-end hotels."

The first trip, focused on Switzerland, includes stays at three five-star properties and local area scouting, giving couples a layered, realistic sense of what their wedding day could actually feel like.

The Community Impact of Choosing a Destination

Beyond the aesthetics and the logistics, there's a dimension to destination weddings that rarely makes it into the conversation: economic impact.

"What I like the most is taking wedding business to other communities because sometimes they don't have the business," says Fox Gott. She points to a 350-person wedding she planned on a small island in the Bahamas. "Tourism is everything to the people that live in that city. So being able to bring wealth and jobs to them really means a lot."

For couples weighing their options, it's worth considering: a destination wedding isn't just a backdrop. In many cases, it's a meaningful investment in a community that depends on exactly that kind of tourism.

Michele Fox Gott is the founder of Center of Attention Events and Luxury Wedding Escapes. She is a speaker at destination wedding conferences worldwide and has planned celebrations across six continents.