Flaky & Confused Bride

Would you consider eloping and the having a separate reception after? You might be able to make your actual legal marriage day one that is truly custom to what you want, just you and your partner, and drama free, but then have a big party later to include loved ones.

Originally this was what my husband and I wanted to do, but we didn't have a space to host a party and the cost for renting a venue, tent, tables, chairs, etc would have been the same as just making the event be our wedding, and my husband did want his parents to be there (which nixed doing anything fun and adventurous) so we decided to go the more traditional wedding and reception at one spot route. Then Covid happened, we eloped anyway (at our venue, just us and our parents and a few friends), and now we are having a wedding celebration this year. Unfortunately, so many of the things we loved about our venue aren't really needed anymore and our guest list has shrunk so we are going to end up paying in the neighborhood of $400-$500 per guest which is just insane. However I feel a complete lack of closure about our elopement and feel like the only way I can move forward is to have this event and have it behind me. I honestly wish we had just done an adventure elopement just the two of us and never planned out a wedding.

Every family has a little bit of drama and ours are relatively mellow, but I still found our elopement day really stressful primarily because of our parents. They are older, not really into technology, and just needed a lot of support from us to be involved. We couldn't do an adventure elopement because of accessibility, my mom pretty much needs a chauffeur to know where the heck to go and what to do, and my husband's parents wouldn't even hug us because of Covid. I 100% believe if we had eloped without them I would have enjoyed it more - I would have been sad that they weren't there but we would have been able to do what we wanted, it would have been focused on US, and it would have been so much less stressful. Now all of the major challenges we are having with our wedding celebration are again about accommodating them and our older guests (their siblings, my husband's aunts) and it just feels like so much energy of ours is going into making sure our least fun guests are comfortable in ways we don't have to with anyone else (all of our friends are capable of arranging their own transportation, following modern day wedding etiquette, etc but it feels like our parents need constant instructions. Unless your family is really going to add something to your wedding day experience, I say just elope and don't deal with the drama. Even if people are upset you eloped they won't be there that day to ruin it. Our parents are really important to us and we wanted to include them, but they have been the most stressful part of our wedding guest list by far. Had I had a crystal ball, I would have eloped with my husband soon after our engagement, just the two of us, and then we would have had a party after that included our family and friends.

I completely understand because I had similar concerns with my husband's friends and family. So my advice would be to sit those that get along at tables together and keep those that don't separate as much as possible. My husband's parents were separated, but not yet divorced for about 15 years at the time of our wedding. While they don't hate each other, we didn't want to force them to sit together. My father-in-law is also estranged from my husband's two older siblings so it was very difficult to decide who to sit him with. Our friends were even more complicated. Our groomswoman, "Rachel" used to date one of my husband's good friends, "Bryan" and "Bryan" was engaged to "Hailey" who has a child with "Kyle" who was dating one of our friends, "Lauren" at the time. We had to make sure "Rachel" and "Bryan" didn't sit at the same table and that "Lauren" and "Kyle" didn't sit at the same table as "Bryan" and "Hailey". It was so much fun trying to keep everyone apart. At one point "Rachel" and "Hailey" almost got into a fight because "Hailey" was extremely rude to "Rachel" at one point during the evening. In a shocking turn of events, "Bryan" and "Hailey" ended their engagement shortly after our wedding because it turned out she was cheating on him and "Bryan" and "Rachel" ended up getting back together and now have a child together.

The only regret I had was with the florist I selected, but otherwise everything was perfect. I didn't even know about the almost fight between "Rachel" and "Hailey" because my husband's brother stepped in prevent them from arguing/fighting.

Do you have someone that could kind of act like a middle man/referee like my brother-in-law did for us so that you don't have worry about arguing/fighting on your wedding day? Another option would be to sit down separately with your parents and express your concerns. Hopefully they can be mature adults for a few hours so that you can have the wedding of your dreams. As for your friends, I wouldn't worry too much about them. We have been to several weddings where we knew basically just the bride and groom and everything turned out fine. We didn't know the people we sat with, but we were able to carry out a simple conversation with them and after dinner guests can easy get up and walk around and dance.