I'm from Germany and DH really wanted to get married there. I thought it was fair enough as either way, some of our families wouldn't be able to make it to our wedding, my German family/friends wouldn't all be able to travel to Australia, and our Aussie family/friends wouldn't all be able to go to Germany. So, seeing hat we live here and spend time with Aussie friends and family a lot, we thought getting married there would even the score and I would get to see a lot of my family that I hadn't seen in a while and they would get to meet my husband.
Well, turns out, a lot more of our family from Australia ended up making the trip. They thought it was a great excuse to travel and visit other overseas family members. Even FIL's 2 sisters and one niece who he had a falling out with years ago and who had no contact wth FIL or DH for a few years, ended up coming and contact has been restored (we decided to invite them because DH has always liked them and it wasn't him who had had the falling out with them). They don't have much money, so they couldn't bring their whole families, but it was lovely that they were there. All in all we had 12 Australian guests, 2 more had planned to be there, but last minute had to cancel as one of them was a South African national and his visa got denied (long story). We found it interesting that some of those who had been the first to say they would make the trip, didn't end up coming, while those we really didn't expect to come, they actually made it.
They all paid their own way. We wouldn't have been able to afford to pay for anyone.

When we got back from our trip, we had a big party at our place which lasted 3 days with all our friends who couldn't come (and 2 of those who were at the actual wedding). It was nothing fancy, just a big camp out in our loungeroom (most of our friends live in Sydney), lots of German food (cooked by me) and German Beer & Schnaps.
This way we could celebrate with them although they couldn't make it to Germany.

I loved having the wedding overseas. We got to spend so much time with everybody. We all stayed at the reception venue (a big farmhouse on top of a hill at the foot hills of the alps), This way the wedding wasn't just a 1 day affair, but we had a couple of days before and after to spend with everyone. DH still raves about how great it was.

Saša