People from abroad.. what to pay for them?

Hi Akrigg!

I have a lot of German family and to be honest I would not pay for them to come over or their hotel stay.

I would say the traditional thing to do in England is to invite them and for them to look on it as a lovely minibreak as well as a chance to celebrate your marriage!

Drinks-wise we are having a free bar anyway but it would clear us out to be paying for people's travel and accommodation too. I would never expect any of our relatives to pay for me to attend their weddings!

I don't think i'd pay for them to attend or pay for their stay tbh.
It's too much of an ask, if they want to be there then they won't mind paying themselves. I'm sure if one of your relatives was getting married you'd be happy to make your own arrangements getting there? So sure they'll be the same
Drinks we're having some free then a pay bar for the rest of the night.
Might just be me though but I wouldn't pay for them personally

I wouldn't think it traditional to pay for their stay - there are hardly travelling halfway across the world at great expense. But I suppose if you have the spare cash, it might be a nice gesture? We paid for one friend's hotel (and put him up in the few days before the wedding) - he had travelled from Australia.

I replied before and my post got lost....

anyway we we have guest coming from the states and carribean! We are not paying for them to come not will we be paying for any accommodation! Most are staying with family anyway but they have the option to stay at the hotel on night of wedding this they will have to pay for themselves like the other guest!

If you have money spare, then by all means pay for hotel rooms/taxis, but if you don't have the money then don't feel bad at all, it is not the "done" thing. Yes, it might be a nice gesture if you can afford to but as others have said, if your guests want to be there then they will pay for themselves. With regards to drinks at the reception, if can afford to put some money behind the bar then do so, for everyone - I don't think you need to make exception for guests who have traveled from abroad.

If you wanted to help, perhaps give the guests details of hotels/taxis/general amenities just to make things a bit easier for them but I wouldn't feel obliged to pay for their stay unless you really could afford to.

I have people coming from the US and Australia and I won't be paying for them. I don't think it is expected. I ahve also been to weddings in Ireland, Spain, India and the US. Nothing was paid for me I treated them all as a holiday and loved every one. The only thing I would say is it's nice to give them a helping hand when booking. My Spanish, Irish and Indian friend all recommended hotels etc. which made the booking process much easier also the Indian hotel system was very different to ours so she took us all through the website. However the American friend didn't so we all had to fend for ourselves which is fine but she gave us no indication of how her day was ordered didn't tell us where the reception was etc. so we found a hotel which was luckily only 1.5miles form the reception so we could walk but we found this out the day before the wedding.

So in short don't worry about paying for them but I would give them lots of information about where you would advise booking etc. Also I have never been to a weddign in Holland but if you are having timings which are very different a heads up could be good. For example the Spanish wedding wasn't until 7pm but was going on until 5am so we were warned to have a lie in that day!

We've got OH's family coming from Aus and his best man is coming from China, we're putting his best man up at our house for the time he's here and then we've paid for him to stay the night of the wedding in the hotel. His parents and sister we've not put anything towards their trip over really, except for the hotel room the night of the wedding - but we're paying for all the bridal party so it's no different to the people who live here!!

I think there is no normal.

I would say it depends on your funds.

My brother lives in the US and is going to pay for the flights of two of his groomsmen so they can attend the wedding. Then he has let them know about very affordable accomodation when they're there. They've been really happy with this but my brother is very lucky that he can afford this as it will cost a fair amount of money.

We have a limited budget. It might be a feeling of guilt. I moved abroad. But as most of you say, I would pay for my own travel and stay at someone else's wedding abroad.

Thank you so much. This guilty feeling is moving away a bit now ?

Don't feel guilty at all! I wish I had the funds to put up some people but our budget is stretching as it is so definitely wouldn't manage that unfortunately, but no one will expect it anyway and i'm sure they'll be perfectly happy to pay their own way Get that guilt away!

My H is french so about a third of the guests came from all over France, maybe about 40 guests?

We didn't pay for them and was not expected.

However, we were supergrateful for them making the effort and tried to make it as comfortable and easy for them as possible, we:-

1. Arranged for a local hotel to offer discounts to guests, and then guided them to this hotel and my H booked rooms for them etc;

2. Arranged and paid for trasnport from our venue in central london back to the hotel for those guests.

3. Todl them all timings of when people were coming over, so they could all be on the same eurostar from paris etc (the French like to travel in packs)

4. Plied them with copious amounts of food and alcohol on the day of the wedding!

Is your Husband to be English? Are you incorporating some traditions from your country - tell us more ;o)

No need to feel guilty at all.

If you're not able to help financially you could help by researching the best deals or airlines etc for guests who need to travel.

I think I will expand our wedding invitation into a welcome to England pack.

Which hotels are nice, good tip about the discount. I will definitely try to arrange that for them.

Cheap ways of traveling etc.

My mom and dad can be my Dutch tour guides for them haha. I bet they will love that ?

My future husband is English.
I would like a British wedding day. Not half Dutch, half British.