When most of the list flies
Planning a destination wedding on the Sunshine Coast
A destination wedding isn't a style. It's a wedding where the guests have to book leave, and that one fact moves every date in your plan forward.
Reviewed 20 July 2026
The definition that matters
Leave, flights, and a car at the other end
Couples reach for the phrase when they mean somewhere with a view. The useful definition is duller. If a decent share of your list has to take annual leave and book a flight to be there, you’re planning a destination wedding, and the paperwork starts earlier than it otherwise would.
That applies to a couple in Melbourne marrying at Yandina Creek. It applies just as well to a couple in Brisbane whose family is in Perth.
The paper
Save the dates 9 to 12 months out
This is the single most useful number on the page, and the one couples most often miss by a season.
A save the date is what guests book flights from. An invitation is too late for that, because by then the cheap seats have gone and somebody’s leave has already been approved for a week in September. Send them 9 to 12 months ahead when travel is involved.
Put four things on it: the date, the town, the nearest airport, and a line telling people the invitation comes later. That last one saves you a fortnight of texts from relatives asking where to send the RSVP.
Invitations follow 4 to 6 months out with the detail: the address, the times, where to stay, how to get there and what to wear. Set the RSVP date about a month before your venue needs final numbers, and expect to ring a fifth of the list anyway.
Between those two mailouts, put one page on the internet with everything on it. Accommodation options at three price levels, the transport plan, the nearest chemist, whether the ceremony is on grass. Guests will read it at eleven at night from another time zone and you will answer far fewer questions.
Save the dates
9 to 12 mo
Before the date, when guests fly
Invitations
4 to 6 mo
With the full detail on them
To Sunshine Coast Airport
20 km
Distance. We publish no drive time, and the section below says why.
Getting here
Airports and the last stretch
Sunshine Coast Airport sits 20 kilometres from Yandina Creek. Brisbane is the other option, further south, with more flights arriving from more places. Guests trade a longer drive for a wider choice of seat and often a cheaper one.
We give the distance and not a drive time. Every minutes figure in circulation was worked backwards from that one number, none of them agree, and an old post on this site quoted one that contradicted the rest of it. Point guests at a maps app on the morning they travel and it will beat anything we could print here.
Decide the transfer plan before invitations go out, because it belongs on them. Hire cars work for anyone staying a week. A coach from one pick-up point works better for a group arriving the day before, and it removes the problem of a rural address at midnight. Don’t assume a rideshare will come out this far late at night.
Anyone landing after dark should have a room booked near the airport or a driver arranged. Unlit country roads and a rental car after a five-hour flight is a combination worth planning out of the weekend.
What you’re asking of interstate guests
Be straight with yourself about the number. Flights, a few nights, a hire car, a gift and time off work adds up to real money per person, and the ones who care most about you are often the ones least able to absorb it.
Two things help. Give people a long runway, which the 9 to 12 month window does. And give them accommodation at more than one price, so nobody has to choose between the nice option and not coming. Say plainly on your wedding page that cheaper options exist and where they are.
School holidays cut both ways. They make it easier for families to travel and harder to find a bed, and hinterland properties fill from a single wedding. Book blocks of rooms early and release what you don’t need later.
Expect a drop-off between the save the date and the RSVP. People say yes to a date a year out and discover in month eight that a wedding interstate costs them a holiday. Plan your numbers with that in mind rather than being surprised by it in month ten.
Three days, not one
If they flew, give them a weekend
Someone who crossed the country for six hours of your evening will feel short-changed and won’t say so. Welcome drinks the night before fixes it cheaply. It also does the introductions, so your Thursday-night nerves get spent on strangers rather than on the ceremony.
Then something loose the morning after. Breakfast, a swim, a drive to the coast. No run sheet. Guests who are already in the country will take it, and it is the part people describe when they get home.
Cottages on site make that shape easier, because the people who danced longest don’t have to drive anywhere afterwards. The hinterland stays guide covers where to put the overflow, including places that aren’t ours, and the hinterland planning guide carries the full 12-month timeline this page sits inside.
20 km from the airport
A property your guests can sleep on
Cottages a walk from the barn, and a paddock to wake up to. Tours run by appointment and take about an hour.