Grab Your Bikini, We're Getting Married

Sept. 14, 2005 — -- The 21st century wedding is traditionally associated with elegant white satin, clinking champagne glasses and fields of red roses, but more and more weddings are featuring white bikinis, exotic locations and frozen tropical drinks.

"Four or five years ago I noticed destinations weddings were happening a lot and it's been booming ever since," said Annette Burden, editor in chief of Destination Weddings & Honeymoons magazine. "Now it's almost mainstream."

In 2005, approximately one in 10 couples will opt for a destination wedding, where the entire wedding party travels to a special location, according to a survey of more than 1,000 brides by the Fairchild Bridal Group.

Burden said there are plenty of reasons to choose a destination wedding -- a smaller wedding party, a unique experience and the lure of no-hassle, all-inclusive packages. But one of the biggest incentives is money.

The average wedding this year will cost $26,437, according to the Fairchild study, but couples who throw destination weddings will spend, on average, 41 percent less.

"Most of the cost in the wedding is in a reception and if you have fewer guests, the cost goes down really quickly," Burden said. "Plus, a lot of these resorts have great packages and there are people at the hotels who will plan the whole thing for you. You can just call them up and say I'm coming and this is the color flowers and I'm having this many guests and you're done."

Sandals Resorts, one of the trendsetters in destination weddings, has been hosting destination weddings for almost 25 years, and even trademarked the term "weddingmoon" a decade ago.

"I think what we were seeing was a lot of people who didn't want to deal with the church wedding, didn't want to deal with the family politics. They were looking for the great escape," said Tony Cortizas, vice president of advertising and marketing at Sandals.