The Pros and Cons of Having a Hometown Wedding

They say that the first thing to think about, when planning a wedding, is location location location. With our ever more mobile society, and the growing popularity of destination weddings, there is the potential for endless places that carry meaning to you and your fiance.

In the next couple posts, I'd like to lay out the pros and cons of having a true hometown wedding versus a destination wedding, versus something in between. I'll start with my own wedding, which I consider a hometown wedding, then we can compare and contrast.

Annie's Wedding:
Location: The town where Annie grew up. Annie and Derek currently reside in the area, as do Annie's parents, and Annie's mom's side of the family.
Pros:

• A good quarter of the wedding guests didn't have to travel.
• Mom was always able to call around vendors, go visit venues, etc. I could always run over to her office to show her the latest version of the ceremony program. Mom and Dad could drop centerpieces off at the venue, which happened to be down the street from their house.
• Lots of resources in people we know, who knew the area, could suggest venues or give you price ranges.
• Living in the area ourselves, Derek and I could visit locations and interview vendors in person. We could also go stop in with the vendor at any random time to change something (admittedly, a phone call works just as well here).
• We had a good idea of where our guests should stay, what there was to do in the area, and what kinds of restaurants to suggest.
• I got to have the wedding ceremony where I had had all the other Catholic sacraments (that I'm eligible for). That's pretty cool.
• It made my parents really happy.
  

Cons:

• Since Derek and I aren't from the same hometown, none of the locations had any significant meaning to us as a couple (prior, of course, to the wedding day). Might have been cool to have the wedding at Notre Dame, where we met and started dating.
• My hometown happens to be on the pricey side.
• Derek's family still had to travel.
• Our venues weren't necessarily "unique." Loved having the ceremony at my home church, but it's a pretty plain Catholic church. The reception, while a wonderful hall, was still just at a regular reception hall.