Destination weddings surge as Australian couples ditch big receptions
The ballroom and banquet package is out for modern Australian brides and grooms, who are choosing destination weddings with unique details that unfold over days, not hours.
Weddings have evolved into personalised, multi-day experiences. With the average destination wedding now costing $32,060 according to the Easy Weddings’ 2026 Wedding Industry Report, couples are spreading their spending across unconventional inclusions and, crucially, for fewer guests.
The report reveals 7 per cent of Australian couples get married interstate, and 4 per cent head overseas. Meanwhile, Australia is one of the most popular destinations for international couples. Research shows the global destination wedding market is niche but lucrative, worth more than $US16 billion in 2026.
From ballrooms to destinations: how weddings are changing
On-site accommodation, day-spa treatments, rehearsal dinners and follow-up breakfasts are key to a destination wedding and couples will venture far for a venue that can deliver all of that and more. Some will use the trip to bundle their wedding and the start of their honeymoon into one location.
“Couples can shape experiences around long lunches, welcome dinners, recovery breakfasts or slower moments with guests,” says Natalie Arnold, creative director and lead event manager of wedding planning business Under the Arbour, who has worked with Pinterest on its 2026 Wedding Trends Report.
Smaller guest lists, bigger experiences
A generation ago, it was accepted that the bride and groom’s parents would invite their neighbours and cousins twice removed. Today, micro-weddings with fewer than 20 guests and elopements are not uncommon, as couples prioritise meaning and intimacy over scale and family expectations.
This has opened the door to commercial assets that would otherwise have been overlooked in the wedding economy.
The rise of unconventional wedding venues
Wedding venue searches on Pinterest have soared for jazz clubs (up 1115 per cent), enchanted palace (545 per cent), rocky mountain (270 per cent), dream ranch (245 per cent), speakeasy lounge (225 per cent), forest terrarium (185 per cent), mini chapel (180 per cent), cabin (110 per cent), movie theatre (105 percent) and glass greenhouses (100 per cent).
However, smaller does not mean couples are spending less. “The level of detail and personalisation has increased,” Arnold says. Clients require a vast range of suppliers to bring their individual ideas to life. “We’ve seen couples personalise traditions in small ways, from replacing champagne towers with martinis or oysters, to decorating cakes themselves with handwritten messages.”
Couple Naïla and Lachlan – with Captain, their Labrador – got married at Pinterest headquarters in Sydney this year in a celebration that included everything they’d searched and saved on the platform, from a pop-up fragrance bar, to a voicemail guestbook and atmospheric burgundy and olive green decor.
They are holding a destination wedding in Spain later this year, but have legally wed in Australia for logistical reasons, as many couples do, before jetting overseas for a bigger event.
Why destination weddings are gaining momentum
Carly Brown, founder and director of Just Married Weddings, which specialises in organising interstate elopements and micro-weddings, says destination nuptials are 55 per cent of her business. Quirky and unique locations are highly sought. “People want to get married in an old timber forest, a bowling alley, a vineyard, or a funky distillery,” she says.
Brown and her team, which includes celebrants, arrange thousands of weddings across Australia each year and are always on the hunt for appropriately sized venues. “This year, it’s been a big focus of ours to work with more and more smaller venues and family-run businesses,” she says. “Those family businesses can do very well in that space.”
How venues are adapting to modern couples
Family-run winery Cupitt’s Estate, between Milton and Ulladulla on the NSW South Coast, has adapted to contemporary tastes.
Although the average wedding size is now 80 guests, down from 100-plus in previous years, owner Libby Cupitt says quality and experience remain essential. “Couples still want to have champagne towers, three-course dining and beautiful wine and cocktails, but just for less people.”
To meet the market, Cupitt’s Estate has launched streamlined packages for half-day venue hire, single-night accommodation, and a marquee that enables regular operations to continue while the wedding is catered for.
Taking care of the menu, drinks, accommodation and relationships with suppliers alleviates the pressure on couples, Cupitt says. “It’s an all-in-one venue, so you go from the ceremony to the cocktail celebration, to the sit-down dinner and dancing, everything here on-site,” she says. “It’s very easy for people, particularly if you are planning from overseas. We say, ‘we’ve got you’.
“I’ve got a supplier list of people we’ve been working with, and accommodation on-site creates that calm day-of experience where you don’t feel like you have to run around.”
The rise of all-in-one and immersive wedding experiences
At Anlaby Station, South Australia’s oldest merino stud, couples love the ease without sacrificing romance. On private acreage, 120 kilometres north-east of Adelaide, there is no through traffic and three cottages on the property are included in the venue hire.
“It’s immersive in the truest sense of the word,” says Andrew Morphett, who owns 187-year-old Anlaby with his partner Peter Hayward. They have carefully restored the elegant, 35-room homestead over the past 20 years, and it is currently for sale through Colliers Adelaide.
Morphett says a destination wedding flips the script on cookie-cutter functions. “It becomes an adventure and an experience rather than just a case of ‘we’ve got to go to a wedding at four o’clock this afternoon’,” he says “People come away and make a weekend of it. More and more people are holding a communal breakfast where everyone comes together, and they can talk through the night before.”
Every element of a ceremony and celebration at Anlaby is tailored, enabling them to host everything from charming elopements with eight guests to sophisticated receptions for up to 150 people.
Morphett says modern couples want to slow down and savour the occasion. “People do need just a few days to take it all in, and then they are ready to go off to their honeymoon,” Morphett says. “No one wants to rush straight to the airport anymore.”
