Eloping vs formal wedding vs both

Hi everyone! Long story short my fiancé and I have been going back and forth about this. We have a venue, dj, etc already booked in fall 2023. He comes from a very large close family (his entire extended family would be devastated if they weren’t invited) and I come from a decently close but small family (as in I’m 90% sure other than my immediate family and one aunt and uncle out of many don’t care about me getting married). I’ve always liked smaller intimate weddings/elopement’s. However with the size of his family and his portion of the guest list of people who would be mortified if they weren’t invited that’s not exactly possible to do. Essentially his side of our list is double what I expected to even have at our wedding. We’ve weeded it down as much as possible. The other main issue is his best man and my maid of honor are very special to us, and we don’t want to rob them or any of our guests of the experience of our wedding (he’s the oldest sibling and I’m the baby and first wedding in my family). We’ve been toying with the idea of eloping spring to early summer and then still having the larger ceremony in the fall (since everything is booked and deposited for.) Does anyone have any insight to this? Any recommendations? Is it a good idea bad idea? Etc