Bringing guests to Thailand without losing friends

A destination wedding asks your guests for money and annual leave. The couples whose weekends go well are the ones who accepted that early and planned around it.

Send the date and the location long before formal invitations. Twelve months is comfortable, nine is workable, less than six means people will decline for reasons that have nothing to do with you.

Group your guests by how they travel. Long-haul guests need a rest day before anything formal. Guests coming from within Asia can arrive the day before. Older relatives and anyone with mobility needs should be near the venue, not in the cheapest hotel forty minutes away.

Hold rooms across two or three price levels rather than one. Guests feel the difference between being invited to a hotel they cannot afford and being given a choice.

Airport transfers are the single cheapest thing you can do for goodwill. Arriving at Phuket or Samui at midnight and finding a name card waiting changes how the whole week feels.