What if your wedding destination was somewhere your guests had never been — and couldn’t stop talking about once they had? Not a place they’d already seen on three other couples’ Instagram feeds, but somewhere with new texture, a story to tell, and scenery that earns its place in the photos.
The appetite for the unconventional has never been stronger. Couples are trading predictable for purposeful choosing destinations where the setting shapes the celebration, and where guests arrive as tourists and leave as converts. From the sun-baked medinas of Morocco to the tea-green hills of Georgia’s wine country, destination weddings in 2027 are going somewhere new. Here’s where.
Photo: Danielle Copperman, Simon Hird
Africa
Cape Town has long been on the radar, but it’s taken a while for the rest of the world to catch up to what it actually offers as a wedding destination. This is a city where you can exchange vows with Table Mountain as your backdrop, spend the afternoon in the Cape Winelands, and end the evening on a coastline that rivals anything in the Mediterranean. The range is almost unfair.
Venues like Cavalli Estate, the iconic Belmond Mount Nelson Hotel, and the intimate Coot Club in Stanford offer very different versions of a Cape Town wedding — all equally compelling. We’ve covered one of them here.
Further north, Zambia is making a quiet case for itself. The Royal Livingstone by Anantara — set on the banks of the Zambezi River with Victoria Falls as a backdrop — is the kind of venue that needs no decoration. Africa’s wildest scenery does everything. And for couples who want to extend the trip, Zanzibar is right there: white sand, warm water, and total seclusion. A natural next stop for a honeymoon.
Photo: La Dichosa
Vietnam
Vietnam doesn’t yet have the wedding reputation of its Southeast Asian neighbors, and that’s exactly the point. While other warm-weather destinations are fully booked and endlessly photographed, Vietnam is still in that rare window where everything feels possible and nothing feels overdone.
The country offers an extraordinary range of backdrops: jaw-dropping coastline, dramatic karst mountains, and cities with genuine chic — Hoi An’s lantern-lit streets and French colonial architecture alone are worth the flight. The local vendor scene has quietly become one of the most exciting in Asia, with planners, photographers, and florists whose taste level rivals anything in Europe. We’ve been paying attention to Vietnam for a while now, and we’re only going to cover it more. A good place to start: our roundup of the top wedding vendors in the country.
Marrakech
Back to Africa — because Morocco deserves its own moment. Marrakech operates on a different frequency entirely: ochre walls, the scent of orange blossom, riads that feel like they were designed for candlelit receptions, and a desert that turns golden at dusk. It’s atmospheric in a way that few places can match.
Venues like Amanjena, Riad Fes, and BE Agafay each offer something distinct: from the iconic tranquility of an Aman property to the raw drama of an agafay desert setting. We recently published a wedding that moved from a quiet greenhouse ceremony to a desert night under the stars, and it was exactly as good as it sounds.
Mexico
You might think Mexico needs no introduction, and you’d be right, but not in the way you’d expect. This isn’t just Cabo and Tulum anymore. Mexico surprises with its contrasts: ancient haciendas, jungle cenotes, colonial cities, and a creative vendor scene that keeps raising the bar.
El Nido de Quetzalcóatl is a surrealist architectural fantasy outside Mexico City — there’s nothing else like it. In the Yucatán, Hacienda Yaxcopoil brings something different: a 17th-century estate surrounded by henequen fields, where the history is part of the atmosphere. On the Pacific coast, Careyes and Casa La Ceiba offer something wilder: dramatic cliffs, private coves, and a sense of total escape. Venues that make guests forget they’re at a wedding and remember they’re somewhere extraordinary.
For couples starting to plan, our roundup of top photographers and top planners in Mexico is a good place to begin.
Photo: Efege, Izzie Karren
Sicily, Italy
There’s a version of Italy that doesn’t end up on mood boards quite as often as it should. Sicily has the clifftop drama, the ancient architecture, the markets spilling over with color, and a coastline that competes with anywhere in the Mediterranean — all without the sense that everything has been perfectly arranged for someone else’s wedding before yours.
The island has range. Tonnara di Scopello — a historic tuna fishery suspended above some of the clearest water in Europe — and the elegant Belmond Villa Sant’Andrea in Taormina are two very different expressions of the same island. Then there’s Monaci delle Terre Nere: a Relais & Châteaux estate set on the volcanic slopes of Mount Etna, surrounded by lemon groves, lava-stone terraces, and vineyards that produce some of Sicily’s most distinctive wine. This is Italy at its most cinematic, and somehow still its most underrated.
Photo: Cara Mia, Libby Willis
Greece
Everyone knows Santorini. And Santorini delivers — but Greece is so much larger than one island, and couples are starting to explore the rest of it. The country has been one of the fastest-growing destination wedding markets in Europe for good reason: the light is extraordinary, the food is exceptional, and the variety of settings is hard to match.
The Peloponnese has Amanzoe — one of the most architecturally striking Aman properties in the world, perched above Porto Heli with views that stretch across the Aegean. In the Cyclades, Paros and Ios are drawing couples who want that iconic Greek island atmosphere without the Santorini crowds. Parilio on Paros and the Cycladic Gem Luxury Villa on Ios are two venues that show exactly what the quieter islands are capable of.
Photo: Courtesy of Rocabella Santorini
Georgia
Georgia is one of those destinations that surprises people, and then won’t let them go. It’s affordable in a way that few places with this level of beauty have any right to be, and it offers a combination of landscapes that most countries can’t match within their own borders: the vineyards of Kakheti rolling out beneath the Caucasus, the snow-dusted peaks of Kazbegi, the medieval streets of Tbilisi. The food is extraordinary, the hospitality is genuine, and the whole country feels like a discovery.
For vineyard weddings, Kakheti is the obvious starting point — estates like Lopota Lake Resort, Vazisubani Estate, and Pabellón Hotel are set among some of the oldest winemaking terroir in the world. For something more dramatic, Rooms Kazbegi puts the mountains front and center: panoramic glass, raw stone, and the kind of views that make guests go quiet.
Photo: Courtesy of Lopota Lake Resort, Gusevaa Victory
Mallorca, Spain
Mallorca keeps surprising people. Away from the coast, you find ancient olive groves, golden stone fincas, and the dramatic peaks of the Tramuntana mountains — a UNESCO World Heritage Site that makes for an extraordinary backdrop.
Neuendorf House, with its famously spare minimalist aesthetic, attracts couples who want architecture to do the talking — and it hosted one of 2025’s most talked-about weddings, when footballer Nathan Redmond and Blaise chose its iconic coral walls as the setting for their celebration. Grand Hotel Son Net and Can Axartell round out the range: palatial and organically rustic, but all unmistakably Mallorcan. Direct flights from most major European cities make it one of the more accessible choices on this list, without any sacrifice in atmosphere.
Photo: Courtesy of Grand Hotel Son Net, Victor Chito
Portugal
It’s hard to overstate how beautiful this country is, from its cities to its coastline to the vast, quiet interior. Portugal is one of those places that consistently delivers more than expected, and the wedding scene has caught up with everything else. There’s a particular quality of light here, especially in the Alentejo and along the Atlantic coast, that photographers talk about the way painters used to.
Herdade do Freixo is a working estate in the Alentejo surrounded by cork oaks and vineyards, with the kind of unhurried rural beauty that feels genuinely restorative. Penha Longa Resort near Sintra offers something more grand: a 14th-century monastery turned luxury hotel, set within a national park. And Casa Na Terra is in a category of its own, raw, architectural, and completely unlike anything else in the country.
Photo: Luisa Bravo, Mini by Luna
The Turkish Riviera
Turkey is known for its hospitality and its resorts — and that reputation is well-earned. But the Turkish Riviera has a habit of surprising even people who think they know what to expect. The coastline here looks like it could be Greece. The ruins could be Italy. The light could be the south of France. For couples planning a destination wedding, the Turkish Riviera delivers on every front: exceptional value compared to Western Mediterranean alternatives, direct flights from most major cities, world-class venues, and a culture that genuinely knows how to celebrate. The logistics are easier than people assume, and the results are harder to beat.
Ruins Luxury Resort sets ceremonies against actual ancient stone with the Aegean as a backdrop. Yazz Collective and Zakros Hotel Lykia round out a scene that’s becoming increasingly sophisticated, without losing the raw beauty that makes this coastline so distinctive.
Photo: Courtesy of Yazz Collective, Momento Event
Iceland
Iceland stops people. Not in the way that a beautiful beach stops you — in the way that standing on a glacier or watching the northern lights appear overhead stops you. It’s a different category of landscape entirely. And if your idea of a perfect wedding involves quiet, privacy, and a backdrop that nobody else has — this one’s for you.
That said, Iceland rewards couples who go in with realistic expectations. The weather is unpredictable, the logistics require more planning than most destinations, and it’s far from the most budget-friendly option. It works best for elopements and intimate weddings — the kind where the setting is the whole point, and the guest list is small by design.
Deplar Farm on the Troll Peninsula is a five-star private lodge that offers total seclusion and access to Iceland’s most dramatic landscapes. The Retreat Hotel at the Blue Lagoon brings something different: Michelin-starred dining, geothermal waters, and a level of luxury that makes the remoteness feel entirely intentional. For the right couple, there is nowhere else quite like it.
Photo: Pavel Lepeshev, Gunnar Gunnar
