5 Reasons to Have a Destination Wedding in Door County

A destination wedding is such as appealing concept.

Rather than a single day of wedding festivities, you get to take things slow and enjoy a locale for a few days. Rather than invite all your fourth cousins and every coworker your parents have ever known, you can curate a more intimate celebration that’s both more structured and more open-ended than traditional weddings.

Although we’re willing to bet you haven’t thought about Door County as potential destination for your destination wedding, the area is particularly well suited to hosting large celebrations. From the region’s experienced wedding vendors and energetic local artisans to its obscene amount of natural beauty, Door County has the goods to help make your destination wedding everything you’ve dreamt it would be.

Majorly Laid-Back Vibes

While you can certainly plan an elegant, sophisticated destination wedding in Door County, it’s just as easy to organize a chill, low-key day if that’s more your and your partner’s style.

Leisure, relaxation, and play are industries unto themselves up here, so while your wedding day will of course be the centerpiece of the trip, you and your guests can spend the extra hours reveling in all the leisure activities and friendly businesses you’ve come to associate with Door County.

An Endless Supply of Scenery

It doesn’t take an artist or an esthete to notice Door County contains a bevy of natural beauty. From its lakes and waterways to its forests and trees to its islands, nature preserves, beaches, and bluffs, the Door peninsula and Washington Island offer an infinite number of stunning and romantic outdoor scenes for hosting your wedding festivities.

Consider an outdoor reception at state or county park, a ceremony surrounded by trees, wildflowers, and foliage, or a bachelor/bachelorette party on a boat or beach.

Plus, if some of your guests are staying for a few days and turning the wedding into a vacation, there’ll be no shortage of outdoor activities to keep them busy all week—such as boating and kayaking, hiking and biking, browsing festivals and sidewalk galleries, or enjoying beverages at a beer/wine garden, all well within view of Door County’s natural scenery.

Plenty of Group-Friendly Activities & Businesses

Planning additional wedding-adjacent activities for you or your guests is a breeze up here. Whether they’re outdoorsy or bookish, adventure-seekers or relaxation-seekers, your guests will have plenty to do, no matter their age, background, interests, or vacation style.

Plus, Door County business-owners are very accustomed to accommodating large groups, so you’ll have no trouble finding lodging, dining, and attractions for all your guests.

In fact, large events are our bread-and-butter—we have more family reunions, corporate retreats, and large-group gatherings coming through these parts than you might imagine. All those people require places to stay, places to eat, things to do together, and other group accommodations, and our vendors are more than equipped to handle them.

Versatile Wedding & Trip Styles

A Fine Balance of Accessibility & Isolation

Door County is located in a, well, interesting spot in Wisconsin—the entire county (plus Washington Island and a few other islands) forms a peninsula that juts into Lake Michigan from the east-central side of the state. If traveling by land, there’s really only one way into the area, from the county’s Southern base, which is connected to Wisconsin’s mainland.

Despite Door County’s out-of-the-way location, it’s still easy for just about anyone to get here. Visitors sometimes arrive by ferry or boat (from a nearby island or another Lake Michigan-adjacent state), and many people opt to fly in to nearby airports and enjoy the scenic one-hour drive into the county. Most visitors, however, arrive by car, and having car access while you’re up here will be invaluable.

Door County’s relative isolation means plotting your and your guests’ arrival may take some doing, but it also means several days of peace, serenity, and unadulterated natural beauty.