Have Wedding, Will Travel

It's the age of the destination wedding, and we're not talking about the Little White Wedding Chapel in Vegas.

Today's well-heeled are saying "I do" on tropical beaches and old-world piazzas, bundling the big day with a celebratory family getaway and luxury honeymoon.

"Brides and grooms are marrying older, they're wealthier and they're more [part of the] jet-set," says luxury-event planner Tatiana Byron, adding that the growing popularity of the destination wedding reflects those demographic shifts.

"It's also an opportunity to make the wedding more intimate ... In your hometown, it's really hard to chop the guest list," Byron says. "Your distant cousin probably isn't going to come to your wedding in France."

Byron's company 4PM Events specializes in the lavish end of the multibillion-dollar weddings market, with one of her most memorable nuptials including 400 guests, a Cirque du Soleil performance, a troupe of belly dancers and a cake decorated with 18-karat edible gold.

She rarely handles weddings with budgets smaller than $100,000 -- with the average couple shelling out $500,000 -- but the destination wedding trend has seeped beyond the borders of the economic uber-elite.

Surprisingly, Joann Delgin, director of wedding strategy for Sandals Resorts, says the average domestic wedding costs about $28,850, while the average destination wedding costs $25,800.

"These weddings are, in many ways, so much easier," Delgin says. "You pick your destination, and our planners take care of everything else. You send your save-the-date cards well in advance ... then guests can even plan their vacations with your wedding in mind."

More Overseas Vows

Sandals hosted 12,000 destination weddings, or "weddingmoons," last year at its properties throughout the Caribbean, a 10% increase over the last two years.

Fairchild Publishing's bridal group estimates that 16% of couples had destination weddings in 2005, which reflects a 400% increase over the last decade.

And Tom Curtin, publisher of Bridal Guide Magazine, says that about 20% of the magazine's readership had a destination wedding in 2005.

"It's just an absolute boom," says Curtin. "The Wall Street Journal ran a piece on a woman who rented a used wedding dress, but was willing to spend $65,000 on a destination wedding in the Bahamas with 250 guests. The popularity is enormous."

This trend is a big business for airlines and destination hotspots, as well as wedding planners.

Hawaiian Holding's (HA Quote - Cramer on HA - Stock Picks) Hawaiian Airlines offers a special "weddings wings" airfare that gives the wedding party 10% off. The couple also gets upgraded to first class if at least 10 family members are on the same flight. And Virgin Atlantic has seen its destination weddings department grow from two people to six in about two and a half years.

	Not Exactly a Tent in Your Mom's Backyard

While Byron says having your big day far away can cut down the guest list, your third cousin twice removed just might be willing to join you in Jamaica.

Destination weddings are getting bigger, with an average of 50 to 80 guests, according to Sandals statistics.

"We're a transient society these days," says Delgin. "Almost all of the guests have to travel anyway."

Ironically, divorce is also among the drivers behind the destination-weddings business.

Of the estimated 2.4 million marriages in 2005, about 18% of them included a bride or groom making a repeat trip to the altar. In 1988, only 2% of weddings included someone who had been married before.

"We're looking at a lot of second and third marriages. These are not 21-year-olds planning a fairy-tale wedding for 100," says Byron. "They know which people really matter in their lives and want to share something special with them."

Moreover, all brides and grooms are getting older. "In 1974, the average age of someone getting married was a 21-year-old woman marrying a 22-year-old man," Curtin points out. "Now the average age of the bride is nearly 29 and the guy is 30 or 31."

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