Are Holiday Weekend Weddings OK? Derek Jeter and Hannah Davis Seem to Think So
Weddings on holiday weekends are divisive, to say the least. (Photo: Getty Images)
Multiple choice: Holidays are a) extra time to spend with family, b) excellent dates for travel plans, c) days for you to spend at home doing nothing, or d) the days you’d really like to travel to someone’s wedding. If you’re choosing your own wedding date, think long and hard about how you’d answer that. Retired New York Yankee Derek Jeter and his fiancée, model Hannah Davis, are apparently hoping their guests pick option D, with the New York Daily News reporting that they’re planning a Napa Valley wedding over Fourth of July weekend.
If we were invited to Jeter and Davis’s wedding, we probably wouldn’t care when it fell — even if the hosts decided to skip the rumored Friday night “croquet party.” But what about the nuptials of mere civilians, perhaps in a random hometown? Would your guests be grumpy about giving up their hard-earned long weekends for you?
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Jessica Bishop, founder and editor of The Budget Savvy Bride, is a fan of holiday weekend weddings. “No matter what day you choose as your wedding date, your guests will likely have to give up a day or full weekend in order to be there,” she told Yahoo Style via email. “If anything, I think choosing to have a holiday wedding still gives your guests an extra day of a long weekend to enjoy to themselves. It seems like a great way to bring your favorite people together for a longer period of time as well, with the extra day allowing for a day-after brunch or other activities.”
Emily Post’s Wedding Etiquette, by Anna Post and Lizzie Post, is a little more on the fence: “Consider the impact timing will have on guests,” they write. “Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the Fourth of July are prime family vacation times, when people have longtime traditions and obligations they may find hard to forgo. … Consider as well any difficulties guests will have in making their travel plans.”
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If your wedding is a popular destination for a given holiday — Boston on the Fourth, Florida over President’s Day — just be aware that your out-of-town guests will be spending extra for their plane tickets and hotels, and give them plenty of extra time to book. Planning a child-free New Year’s Eve ceremony? Some parents will have a seriously hard time finding babysitters that night, so think about providing (or helping to organize) some kind of childcare alternative. You should also keep in mind that not everyone gets the same holidays off. Columbus Day and Martin Luther King Day, for instance, aren’t universally recognized by companies, so your guests might wind up taking vacation days after all.
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Either way, guests will appreciate if you acknowledge that they’ve chosen to spend their days off with you. It’s up to you whether you thank them with extra pre- and post-wedding activities (that you host and pay for), like Jeter and Davis, or simply with a note.
Here’s another (slightly harsh) point in favor of holiday weddings: If, for budgetary reasons, you don’t necessarily want everyone on your guest list to attend, picking a day with possible scheduling conflicts will weed out anyone who’s not wild about celebrating your love.
Or, put in Bishop’s much less cynical terms: “If they love you and want to be there, they won’t see it as an inconvenience.”
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