A basic wedding etiquette question regarding the decision to attend or not attend

In My Humble Opinion
41

My SO and I live 2000+ miles from our families-- they live on the edges of the country and we’re in the middle. When/if we get married, it’ll likely be where my parents live, in Hawaii. Basically, it’ll be a destination wedding for everyone except me and my parents.

I am planning on flying my SO’s immediate family in and putting them up someplace nice as part of the wedding expenses. I know what it’s like to have to plan a trip far away for a wedding, and I would like my future in-laws to not have to do that. I regard enduring the 10+hr flight as a lot to ask as it is. Fortunately, I have never wanted a long, fancy, excessively complicated wedding with hundreds of guests, and I totally expect most of the budget to go toward making sure his family is there.

My thought is that if you are planning your wedding at some distant location and you really want people to come, you’ll fly them there and put them up on your dime. And even then you have to understand if they decline.

42

One thing I like about me is that I rarely allow a feeling of obligation to make me attend an event I don’t want to attend. If I don’t feel like going to someone’s wedding, I’m not going. This is especially true if the wedding is long-distance. But as a general rule, I go to weddings because they are fun – even weddings of people I don’t know very well. I’ve traveled out of state for a wedding once, and it cost me and my husband hundreds of dollars, but it was money extremely well spent to watch two beloved former-roommates tie the knot. Nobody is obligated to attend anyone else’s wedding, though I will say, with emphasis, if you say you are going to come, come!