Trend: Destination Weddings

Second Marriages Offer Second Chance, Less Tradition and More Sense of Self

During a divorce, most people focus on the pain, not the opportunity. But divorce can allow a second chance — the chance to pursue a more meaningful relationship and remarry on our own terms, not our family’s.

Greg Hecker, 44, and his bride, Valerie Smith, know all about that. When they decided to get married last year, the second marriage for both, the couple decided to hold a destination wedding to celebrate their new life together. The couple lives in southern New Jersey. They invited an intimate group of family and friends to join them in Santa Fe, N.M., in late August for their wedding.”This was more about what we wanted to do as opposed to what our families wanted to do,” said Hecker, of Swedesboro, N.J.

SECOND MARRIAGES — LESS TRADITIONAL

Nearly one in 10 weddings are part of this increasing trend, according to a Conde Nast Bridal Group survey. And many of those are second marriages, said Cynthea Kinnaman, a wedding planner based in Santa Fe who coordinated the couple’s wedding. “Second marriages are much less traditional than first marriages,” Kinnaman said.

“The couple is a bit older and their personalities are more developed, so they have more of a sense of who they are and they have a better sense of the kind of ceremony they want. In the second marriage, they don’t have the pressures of either parent to have the wedding that the parents want. A younger, first-time bride, mom is planning the wedding and influencing the style. The mature bride knows who they are and what they want,” she said.

The Heckers followed that trend. “We wanted it to be unique, non-traditional,” Greg Hecker said. “It wasn’t a big concern if people couldn’t make it the second time around.” He was not being cavalier. Just, well, mature.

Most of the people who were invited to the Heckers’ wedding –“ including the parents of the bride and groom and their immediate families — attended the event, which was like a mini-vacation for all. “It doesn’t favor one group in any one area,” said Greg’s father, Peter Hecker, who flew in from Lodi, Calif., with his second wife, Elaine. Greg’s mother, Barbara Hallowich, flew in from the east coast with her son’s 14-year-old daughter Melissa, who lives with her mother in Mullica Hill, N.J. “Brides aren’t being married in the basements of their churches anymore,”said Kinnaman. “People are looking for a simpler, more romantic opportunity to be with family and friends.”

But there’s nothing simple about the things you have to think about if you decide to have a destination wedding, said Kate Rokosz, a destination wedding specialist with Uniglobe Tour ‘N Travel in Newark, Del. These weddings should be planned out six, eight, even 12 months ahead,” she said. Not only because the couple needs to give their guests time to get a couple of days off. These trips can get pricey. “It takes people that long to pay for it, too,” said Rokosz, who has packaged destinations weddings that cost as much as $40,000. It can cost a guest $1,000 and more for a three- to five-night package in the Caribbean — the most popular destination wedding option on the east coast. The packages include everything, including hotel, food, and drink. The couple also needs to worry about what the law requires to be married, especially when you’re considering tying the knot in a foreign country such as Jamaica or Mexico. Each Caribbean island has a different length of residency,” Rockosz said. You have to find that out: it could be 24 hours or four business days.”

“It can cost a guest $1,000 and more for a three- to five-night package in the Caribbean — the most popular destination wedding option on the east coast. The packages include everything, including hotel, food, and drink. The couple also needs to worry about what the law requires to be married, especially when you’re considering tying the knot in a foreign country such as Jamaica or Mexico. Each Caribbean island has a different length of residency,” Rockosz said. You have to find that out: it could be 24 hours or four business days.”

The Heckers bypassed most of these problems by keeping the wedding in the United States. They split the bill with the bride’s father and paid each guest’s room bill for two nights. The guests had an option to stay two more days. If keeping the wedding in the States helped make it simple, Valerie’s decision to hire a wedding planner made it more so.