Destination wedding packing list: what guests need for a wedding in Europe

Pack these in the bag that stays with you on the plane.

• Your passport or national ID card. Guests from outside the EU, including the UK and the United States, should check passport validity and any visa or entry rules on their own government’s travel advice before they book.
• Boarding passes, hotel or villa confirmations and any transfer booking, saved offline on your phone and, if you like paper, printed.
• Travel insurance details, with the emergency number saved in your phone.
• Health cover: if you are insured in an EU country, the European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) covers necessary treatment in the public healthcare system during a temporary stay, but not private care or getting you home, as the Your Europe page on health cover explains. UK residents can usually use the UK Global Health Insurance Card (GHIC) in the EU, or a UK EHIC until the expiry date on the card. The GHIC is valid in Switzerland only for some nationalities, and the NHS says it is not a replacement for travel insurance.
• A bank card that works abroad without high fees, and a little local cash for taxis, tips and village cafés.
• Your driving licence, if you plan to hire a car.
• The couple’s schedule and the venue address, saved offline. The guest information pack from the couple usually has both.

Start with the dress code on the invitation, then adjust for the place and the season. A dress code that works at home may not suit a hillside in August.

By season

• Summer in southern Europe: light, breathable fabrics such as linen and cotton, sunglasses and a hat for an outdoor ceremony. Afternoons can be very hot, so plan for shade.
• Spring and autumn: warm afternoons and cool evenings are common. Bring a jacket, a wrap or a light knit that goes with your outfit.
• Ireland, the UK and northern Europe: pack for rain at any time of year, with a compact umbrella, a smart coat and shoes that cope with wet grass.
• Mountains and lakes: evenings cool quickly once the sun goes down, even in summer.

By venue

• Beach: flat sandals or wedges, nothing with a thin heel, and fabrics that don’t mind a breeze.
• Vineyard, garden or villa: block heels or flats for grass and gravel, and a layer for an evening outdoors.
• Church or religious ceremony: some churches expect covered shoulders and knees. A scarf or light jacket solves it for the ceremony.
• Old town or castle: cobbles and steep steps are hard on heels. Pack a pair of comfortable shoes to change into.

For the whole weekend

• An outfit for each event on the schedule: welcome drinks, the wedding day, a farewell brunch.
• Swimwear, if there is a pool or the venue is near the sea.
• Something comfortable for the travel days.
• A small sewing kit, safety pins and blister plasters.

If you can, carry the wedding outfit in your hand luggage. A delayed suitcase is annoying on holiday and a real problem on the morning of a wedding.

• Sun cream, after-sun and lip balm with SPF, even for a spring or autumn wedding in the south.
• Insect repellent for evenings outdoors near water or gardens.
• Your regular medicines in their original packaging, with a copy of the prescription, in your hand luggage.
• Painkillers, plasters, and anything you use for travel sickness or hay fever.
• Make-up, a travel hairdryer or straighteners if you need them (check the plug and voltage below), and dry shampoo for a long day.
• Liquids rules for hand luggage vary between airports, so check the rules at each airport you fly from, including the one for your flight home, before you pack full-size bottles in your cabin bag.

Most of mainland Europe uses round two-pin plugs. Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Germany, Austria, Croatia and the Netherlands use Type C and Type F sockets; France and Belgium use Type C and Type E. Italy also has its own Type L sockets, Switzerland Type J and Denmark Type K.

Ireland, the UK, Malta and Cyprus are different. They use Type G, the plug with three rectangular pins. Ireland’s tourism board puts it simply: “Plugs in Ireland are three-pronged and the electricity supply is 230v/50hz, so bring an adapter.”

• A slim two-pin Type C plug fits the sockets you will meet across mainland Europe, so a Type C adapter is the most useful one to pack for the continent.
• Guests travelling from Ireland, the UK, Malta or Cyprus to the continent need an adapter that takes their three-pin Type G plug and fits a two-pin European socket (often sold as a UK to Europe adapter). Guests from the continent need the reverse for a wedding in those countries.
• Guests from North America need an adapter everywhere in Europe.
• An adapter changes only the shape of the plug, not the voltage. Mains electricity across Europe is 230 V. Check the input range printed on each charger: most phone and laptop chargers accept 230 V, but some hair tools made for the United States do not.
• Pack a short extension lead or a charger with several ports if you share a room, so one adapter can charge everything.

Plug and voltage details by country are listed on WorldStandards, and its Type C page explains which sockets the two-pin plug fits.

Your phone is your camera, map, boarding pass and wedding schedule all weekend. A few minutes of preparation before you leave can spare you a flat battery at the first dance.

• Charger and cable: the one you use every day, plus a spare cable if you have one.
• A power bank in your hand luggage: spare batteries and power banks must travel in the cabin, never in checked bags, according to EASA’s passenger guidance and the UK Civil Aviation Authority. There are limits on how many you can carry and how large they can be, EASA says they should not be recharged on board, and airlines add their own rules, so check your airline before you pack.
• Free storage on your phone: delete or back up old videos and duplicates before you travel, so you don’t run out of space halfway through the speeches.
• The album link, saved before you fly: if the couple has sent a link or QR code for a shared photo album, save it in your notes or messages now, so you are not hunting for it at the reception. If the album has a password, save that with it. For an encrypted album, keep the complete link exactly as the couple sent it, because it contains the key that unlocks the photos.
• A roaming check: read the next section before you travel.

If your mobile plan is from an EU country, the EU’s roam-like-at-home rules normally let you use it at domestic prices in other EU countries and in Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, though your operator may cap data at that price under a fair-use policy. Plans from the UK, Switzerland, the United States and elsewhere are not covered, so check your operator’s roaming charges before you travel; some include EU roaming. The Your Europe page on mobile roaming explains the rules.

Venues in the countryside or by the sea can have weak signal, so ask for the guest Wi-Fi when you arrive.

Whether to bring a gift to a destination wedding is a question of etiquette rather than packing, and advice differs. The destination wedding etiquette guide covers it. If you do give something, a card with a contribution to the couple’s gift list, or a present sent to their home, saves carrying it on the plane.

Guests often take some of the best pictures of the weekend: the welcome evening, the dance floor, the moments the photographer missed. If the couple has a shared album, here is how to add yours.

• Scan the QR code with your phone’s camera, or open the link. The album opens in your browser, so you don’t need an app or an account.
• Choose your photos and keep the page open until it says they are uploaded. Uploading sends a copy, and the photos stay on your phone.
• A few favourites on the night are plenty on a weak connection. Add the rest when you are home, before the date the couple gives.

FotoDrop doesn’t send reminders to guests, so note the couple’s deadline when you save the link.

Photos are normally optimised to at most 4,000 pixels on the longest edge. Keep the camera originals separately if you need untouched files, larger prints or room for substantial cropping.

Couples can share this page as it is, or copy the parts that matter into the guest information pack, next to the schedule, the dress code and the venue Wi-Fi. Add the album link to the same message, so guests can save it before they travel.

Your Free album holds up to 100 photos in total and stays available for 14 days from its first successful upload. No payment card needed. Videos are not included.

Because that countdown starts with the first upload, not the wedding date, ask guests to wait until the wedding day before they upload, and use a separate rehearsal album for your own test. The photo limit is shared by the whole album. If you expect more photos or need more time, you can upgrade the album; see pricing and options.

Reminders are up to you: plan one follow-up message after everyone has travelled home. The guide for destination wedding guests covers signs, venue Wi-Fi and reminders across time zones.

Album details and uploaded photos on FotoDrop.eu use Cloudflare storage restricted to the EU. Email delivery, network handling, support, logs, caches, visit measurement and backups have their own processing arrangements and may involve locations outside the EU.

This describes where the album is stored. It is not a promise that every part of the service stays in the EU. The privacy policy covers who processes what and where.

Guests open the album in their browser without installing an app or creating an account. By default, people with the shared link or QR code can view its photos while the album is active. A link can be forwarded, and recipients can save copies.

• Documents: passport or ID, bookings saved offline, travel insurance, EHIC or GHIC, a card that works abroad, some local cash.
• Outfits: one per event, a layer for the evening, shoes for the ground at the venue, the wedding outfit in your hand luggage.
• Toiletries: sun cream, insect repellent, medicines in original packaging, blister plasters.
• Plugs: a two-pin Type C adapter for the continent, Type G for Ireland, the UK, Malta and Cyprus, and a charger that accepts 230 V.
• Phone kit: charger, power bank in the cabin, free storage, the album link saved, a roaming check.