This is more so true for us. We definitely choose destination because it was more affordable for us. We have a budget of $10,000 and that is not counting airfare and accommodations.
I will admit that we didn't thoroughly think through the minor details but it's not costing us too much. We're working with a wedding planner which eases a lot of the work.
We've budgeted about $5000 for airfare, tuxes, rental car, and spending money. We're not paying for accommodations since we're using a vacation home for the ceremony and reception and my family is staying there as well. Since it doubles as somewhere to stay and a venue location we're (me and FI) aren't paying for this, our family is.
So I guess our total is about $15,000, about $2500 of that being spending money.
Another factor is your guest list. My estimated guest list is about 100. If it was less than that I would of easily been about to pull it off with a tighter budget.
I wouldn't pay attention to the overall number because sometimes it doesn't correlate with the same about of guests you might be having.
If we were to have a wedding like this in our area we're looking at easily paying $20,000+ not to mention a bigger guest list. Good Luck!