The Big Day turns into several

Flip-flop season has barely begun, and yet Nick Haines already knows that a good chunk of his summer is being fueled -- or perhaps consumed -- by cake and champagne.

For Memorial Day, there's the campground wedding in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts. Fourth of July takes the New Yorker to a ceremony in Chicago. And Labor Day means a service and reception in Raleigh, N.C.

Three weddings over the Big Three summer holiday weekends. And these are his girlfriend's friends: For two of the nuptials, he has met neither the bride nor the groom.

Haines, 33, who works in real estate, is diplomatic: "It would probably be nice to have at least one of the three free for a little backyard barbecue fun."

The icing on this wedding story? Haines has three other ceremonies this summer, in San Francisco, Palm Springs, Calif., and Portland, Ore. -- places so far flung it takes three days to get there and back. "It's just all-consuming," Haines says.

That's because these days couples don't just ask guests to save the date. They ask them to save the weekend -- or even the week.

The three-day wedding -- anchored by the Day 1 rehearsal dinner, Day 2 ceremony/reception and Day 3 brunch -- is becoming as standard a convention as the white wedding dress.

"I'm a huge believer that if you're going to make somebody come all the way across the country to share your special day," it should be more than just The Day, says Caitlin Aptowicz, who is celebrating her marriage to Leonardo Trasande with three days of festivities in Annapolis, Md., her college town. (The actual vows will be said July 1.) Every one of the 120 guests is traveling there, including the couple, who live in Manhattan.

"It's about, 'Let's be the polite host,'" says Millie Martini Bratten, editor in chief of Brides magazine. "You certainly don't want them to feel alone in a strange town."

So you invite them to the rehearsal dinner. The formerly intimate meal reserved for the bridal party and immediate family has become "almost as grand as the wedding itself," Bratten says, with sit-down meals, flower arrangements, DJs, bands and headcounts that rival those of the reception.

Interspersed among the main attractions, you load guests up with activities: poker nights, golf outings, spa treatments and shopping excursions. And to show out-of-towners you appreciate their sacrifice -- of time, money and squishier stuff like emotional support -- you leave in their hotel rooms welcome baskets stuffed with snacks, bottled water and, for certain contingents, hangover remedies.

The growing popularity of the three-day extravaganza is a big part of why weddings have become so unwieldy and stressful for couples to plan and finance. (The average cost of a wedding has nearly doubled in the past 15 years, to $27,852, according to the Conde Nast Bridal Group.)

And yet couples love getting hitched over a three-day weekend (even if their guests are less enthusiastic). A lengthier wedding seems more special, and the bride and groom get to hobnob with family and friends over a holiday.

Amy Hodgdon hasn't heard any grumblings about her wedding Sunday in Millis, Mass., to Rich Levine. With nearly half of her 160 guests traveling in, many from her fiance's home state of New York, she has organized a golf tournament the day before: Boston (she's from nearby Attleboro) vs. New York. "It could get ugly with all those Red Sox and Yankee fans together in one place," says Hodgdon, 29, an accountant.

With so many events in motion, Hodgdon has divvied up the preparation duties among her family and future in-laws. One of Hodgdon's projects? Collecting and assembling 50 New England-themed (Ocean Spray cranberry juice, Cape Cod potato chips) goodie bags for out-of-towners, as well as creating pamphlets that detail everything from sightseeing to hairstyling options. "That was a lot of work," Hodgdon says.

Lindsay Maheu DiTore's December nuptials in Chicago featured a full menu of activities: a ladies' luncheon on the 95th floor of the John Hancock Center, manicures and pedicures for the bridesmaids, a two-hour cocktail party with butlered hors d'oeuvres -- and that was only part of Friday's schedule. Post-cocktail party, "my girls and I just ordered pizza, hung out in the hot tub and relaxed," says DiTore, 25 -- good thing, because DiTore, who lives in St. Louis and works in real estate, had two more days of merriment to get through.

Marathon weddings are becoming mainstream, explain wedding experts, because ours is a peripatetic population. Few brides and grooms live in their hometowns, or even come from the same hometown, so they marry in the city where they live -- or in a city where nobody lives: 26% of couples are hosting destination weddings this year, according to Bridal Guide magazine, which estimates that guests spend an average of about $900 to attend.

"It's hard to have friends fly all this way across the country and spend money and have only two minutes with them. In a way, it doesn't feel right," says Josh Brooks, co-owner of Fete, a Manhattan-based party planning outfit that typically deals in six-figure, three-day wedding affairs. So couples reward guests with festivities spread out over days.

But the solution, say some bridal experts and brides themselves, isn't necessarily to schedule nuptials over long weekends. Couples "think they're sparing everyone, and what's so sad is that, unless they're truly a best friend, people are oftentimes upset because they want to have their own family getaway," says Carley Roney, editor in chief of online wedding resource The Knot. Some wedding planners, chagrined at losing their own family time, charge a premium.

Roney has heard of people who have had to arrive to a wedding site earlier or leave later to snag an affordable flight over a holiday weekend. And tempers flare when guests consider they're sitting in a church vs. on the shore.

"You're putting the guest in a difficult position, and you shouldn't be offended if some decide not to come," Roney says. (In fact, some couples book a holiday weekend -- like New Year's Eve -- to weed out the guest list.)

With 90% of her attendees from out of state, Denise Johnson knew she wanted to make her Raleigh, N.C., wedding last year a "little vacation" for her 120 guests, complete with Friday night outdoor barbecue and Sunday hotel brunch flanking the main event. But holiday weekends were off-limits. She and her now-husband, Marshall Johnson, "picked a totally random date," June 11.

"People want to go to the beach," says Johnson, 30, a choreographer who lives in Greensboro, N.C. "They love us and everything, but let them be with their family."

But if the extravaganza is held in a charming waterfront town vs., say, a land-locked suburb, "it's so worth it," says Aptowicz, 31, a neuroscientist and science writer whose "Save the date" card tantalized guests with talk of Annapolis' winding cobblestone streets and historic harbor views.

Before setting the date, she polled her friends "to see if anyone would be horrified, if someone would say, 'Oh, I can't miss Aunt Matilda's barbecue.'" The response was "overwhelmingly positive." She sees it as "splitting the difference of a convenient weekend: It's not on a holiday, but it's near a holiday." So guests can keep their appointments with the family grill. "I don't know if I would have done it if Saturday was July 4 itself."

This Sunday, while her friends frolic at the beach and the lake, Deepa Jagannathan is leaving her Charlotte home for the nuptials of a family friend in "middle-of-nowhere North Carolina," aka Durham. "There is nothing to do there," says Jagannathan, 29, who works in medical administration. But "it gets worse," she says: She's going with her parents, who aren't too thrilled about it, either. "So my whole weekend is ruined."

Two years ago, she schlepped to a wedding on Labor Day, but that was at the beach, in Wilmington, N.C., so "that was fine."

Haines -- who last year spent July 4 at a wedding in "lovely Jersey City" and Labor Day "just kind of trapped" at one in New York -- sees benefits to where and how he'll enjoy his three-day weekends. Chicago on the Fourth of July means he'll get to see his sister, who lives in the Windy City. Raleigh at Labor Day is a chance to visit his alma mater, Duke, as well as sneak in a trip to his favorite barbecue joint.

And as for relaxing over Memorial Day, "bunk beds at camp are always an affordable option" vs., say, a rental in the Hamptons. His girlfriend, he says, has "already claimed the top bunk."

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