Fly Me To The Moon

When Angela Ramsay and Henk Tjalsma decided to get married, they had to make a Solomonic choice. She's British and he's Dutch, so a wedding on either's home turf would have meant an overseas trip for the other's family. So they opted for Tuscany, inviting only their closest relatives. "We'd been on holiday there and just fell in love with it," says Ramsay. Some Internet research led the couple to settle on a ceremony in the town of Certaldo, and to entrust the planning to WeddingItaly by Punto di Fuga, an Udine-based company that handles 200 weddings a year and arranged the paper work, ceremony, photography, flowers and reception. When Ramsay and Tjalsma were married last month in Certaldo's 12th century governor's palace, the wedding went off without a hitch. It was presided over by a representative of the town's mayor — assisted by a translator.

Fewer Europeans are getting married now than a generation ago, but when they do wed, more of them, like Ramsay and Tjalsma, are looking for unusual ways to say I do. It used to be that marrying away from home meant sneaking off to elope. Not anymore. So-called destination weddings have long been popular with adventurous Americans and Japanese couples seeking alternatives to expensive ceremonies at home. Today, an estimated one-third of U.S. couples combine wedding and honeymoon into one big getaway — or "weddingmoon" — usually with friends and relatives in tow. But destination weddings are growing in popularity among Europeans, thanks to some of the same factors that have fueled the trend in the U.S. As the marriage age increases, older couples are more determined to take control of their weddings, especially since they're likely to be footing the bill. According to one recent survey, more than 10% of U.K. couples now choose destination weddings, up from 6% five years ago, and the figure is rising quickly as tour operators and vacation venues — hard hit by slowdowns in the travel industry — scramble for a bigger share of the bridal business. Wedding planners report that the trend is also catching on in Ireland, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium, with couples heading to the sunnier climes of southern Europe to exchange vows.

Long-haul locales like the Caribbean or Las Vegas attract plenty of couples, but for larger weddings — 150 guests is about as big as destination weddings get — couples are more likely to remain closer to home. "It's less a case of getting married on a beach in the Caribbean these days," says Vikki Berg, travel editor at Brides magazine in the U.K. "People prefer to go off to a villa in Italy instead." Tuscany and Umbria are the most popular venues — though Italians themselves, like the French and Spanish, still tend to wed at home. Ireland, Austria, Malta and Cyprus are also popular choices. Bulgaria has become a favored spot for Israelis, who have to travel abroad for civil ceremonies as these aren't permitted under Israeli law. Most of the couples understand Bulgarian because they're immigrants from the former Soviet Union who don't meet strict Orthodox rabbinical requirements. Last Monday, the registry office in the Black Sea port of Varna hosted 25 Israeli weddings in quick succession — another 15 are booked for this Monday.

Regency San Marino, the largest Italy-based destination wedding organizer, plans some 600 ceremonies a year. About a quarter of the company's clients are from Japan, a quarter from North America, and the rest from Europe. "Over the past two years, with concerns about travel and the war in Iraq, we've seen a decrease in requests from the U.S.," says Regency's Sara Gennari. But, she hastens to add, European clients — especially Brits — are helping pick up the slack. WeddingItaly coordinator Laura Frappa says that the Americans who form the bulk of her company's business have been deterred more by the weak exchange rate than by fears of terrorism or anti-Americanism.

Part of the appeal of a destination wedding is that it can actually save money. In a report last year on weddings abroad, the U.K. consumer analysis firm Mintel estimated that the typical wedding abroad costs €7,200 — the average bill for a wedding in the U.K. is €20,210. Most ceremonies WeddingItaly arranges cost from €7,000 to €10,000, including flowers, the minister's fee and a reception for about 30 guests. With only eight guests, the Ramsay-Tjalsma wedding in Certaldo cost just j3,000. The savings come from having to entertain fewer people, since it's easier to keep the guest list in check for a destination wedding.

But if a destination wedding can be cheap, it can also be a hassle. Since legal requirements for marriage vary by country, couples who venture abroad must contend with complications that would never arise at home. France, for example, requires a pre-marriage residency period of at least 40 days, so destination weddings there are often merely a symbolic exchange of vows, with the official ceremony taking place at home. Italy's laws are more accommodating, but dress and behavior codes in Italian churches are strict, and Italian priests have little tolerance for some practices that have become standard elsewhere, like a bride and groom writing their own vows or incorporating a Buddhist blessing into the ceremony. Locals whose towns or villages have become popular destination wedding sites also have mixed feelings about the lucrative traffic. "There's a certain amount of resistance, irritation with the late-night partying," says Sarah DeKlein of Aisleaway, a London-based company.

But some destination weddings are simple to arrange. When Brits Lucy Poulton and James Howard decided to tie the knot this year, they put together a wedding in the Norwegian ski resort of Hemsedal in less than two weeks. All they needed was to provide proof that they were single and to show up with two sponsors, whom they recruited from the resort's staff. The ceremony, in a mountaintop chapel nestled in the snow, "was more special than I could ever have imagined," says Lucy. "It all came together. It could have been a complete farce, but it wasn't." And at just over €1,450 for everything — including flights and a week of skiing — the moment was economical as well as magical. That's a winning combination for the start of any marriage.