Planning a Summer Wedding? Consider Combining It with a Family Vacation.

Is there a summer wedding in your future? If like many couples you have to fly in friends and family members from around the country for the event, why not take advantage of that fact to invite the whole group to a resort for a spectacular family vacation?

From Vegas to the Virgin Islands to the natural beauty of New England, many family-oriented resorts are glad to book entire groups of family and friends for a weekend or a week, and many have facilities that can accommodate a wedding reception or even the wedding itself. More and more resorts have an official wedding planner on staff to help you work out all the details, from choosing and sending out invitations to making hotel or motel reservations, planning the reception dinner or buffet, and even finding musicians.

One problem with combining a wedding and a family vacation is that you may have friends and relatives who don't feel they can afford to pay for their travel and accommodations. If part of the deal is that each guest pay his or her own way, one solution is to figure out if you have funds available to supplement or even entirely pay for these expenses for your less affluent guests, and pay for the expenses yourself. The resort should be able to help you with this, and depending on the number of rooms you book may even be able to offer lower rates for some or all of your guests.

Of course, the advantage is obvious: Once you and your new spouse leave the reception for your honeymoon, the rest of your friends and family will have some precious time to visit with each other, get caught up on family news, and just enjoy each other's company in a relaxed setting before returning to their busy lives. What a gift to give your loved ones!