Wanting to elope instead of having an ugly wedding.

I'd do a local microwedding and pay for it yourself so your mom has no say. Invite only closest friends and immediate family.

If you're having friends but excluding your mother for a Vegas elopement, after she has spent money and time planning your wedding, that would be super hurtful.

If you care about aesthetic and are tight on funds, traveling to Vegas at a cheesy chapel probably isn't the way to go. You could get married at the courthouse and have a nice restaurant meal after. You could get married at a public park for a few hundred dollar permit.

View Quoted Comment Hey! Thanks for responding. The only issue with inviting just immediate family is that none of our families live in the same state so I doubt they would want to drive or fly in for a courthouse wedding. Also the only reason I was saying Vegas was because we had talked about going there for our honeymoon so we would already be there. My mom hasn’t spent a lot yet so I would just pay her back for the dress and probably donate it. A lot of the stuff for the wedding she’s getting for free because she has friends who do fake flower arrangements and wedding cakes as hobbies and that’s who she wants to go with.

Decline the money because it comes with strings attached . Mom already got married and many parents had their weddings planned by their own moms so they feel that is the only acceptable way to get what they wanted. If you are getting married, you decide how it’s planned, not how how someone wants who is living vicariously through you. That is why you and fiancé need to plan the wedding you both want with your own money. When you accept a penny of someone else’s, then they get the final say unfortunately because they don’t see it as “we are offering this as a gift and we will mind our own business outside of footing the bill” and rather “we pay so we get our way”. Also get practice in now setting and maintaining boundaries with consequences as a team with fiancé’s support even with parents. If you give in to their guilt trips and pressure with this, they will continue after the wedding to dictate other life choices that are yours to make, not theirs.



The beauty of planning your own wedding on your own dime is that you get to decide who is invited and who isn’t and how simple vs elaborate. Parents don’t get to bully you on this. Make a list of those people whom you absolutely cannot imagine the day without and only they get invites. If you don’t want family there, you aren’t required to invite them if you don’t have a relationship with them. Invite best friends only if that’s what you prefer. If parents want to invite specific people you don’t care about, including other relatives, they can host them any other time on their own. Your wedding is not a family reunion for them. It doesn’t have to be one extreme or another: elopement vs big wedding. There are a million options in between and none of them call for mom planning, especially if she is not respecting your wishes. Do what you and fiancé want and can afford. Skip the post-wedding “reception/after party” for those not invited to the ceremony/reception. Save the rest of your money for life after the wedding getting back on your feet.

Oh no!!

I'm Sorry to hear/read that. If I were in your shoes, I would cancel and wait untill you and FH have enough money so you can pay for everything a and get your way. Mom's money comes with 1 millions strings and in this situation , she's not planning your wedding, she's planning the wedding she's never had because hers was planned by her own mom years ago.

You mentioned the fact her feelings get hurt everytime you give backlash: another proof she's controlling rather than gifting you the wedding.

It sounds like you would seriously be upset years from now to see your photos because everything would be the opposite of what you envision.

You would resent her, ****% sure.

Just a question (I'm not judging you, it's out of curiosity): was the fact of getting married as soon as you gratuated something important to you?

View Quoted Comment Hey! Honestly we could wait longer to get married. It wasn’t important to get married soon after graduation. We have been together for 3 years and both know we wanted to get married so when he proposed I didn’t have to think twice lol. Our wedding isn’t supposed to be until next summer so we have time to decide what we want to do. I am leaning more towards canceling the wedding and doing something different but I know there will be a lot of hurt feelings and people with harsh opinions. I just feel like this is supposed to be our day and right now it doesn’t feel like it is.

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The last part of your reply "people with harsh opinions. I just feel like this is supposed to be our day and right now it doesn’t feel like it is" is the reason why I would want to cancel/postpone. In fact, I didn't even need you to respond this to make up my mind on this situation LOL, since your original post is already crystal clear.

During the planning process, you can't and won't please everyone since everyone has their own vision of what a perfect wedding should look like and if you have 50 family members, chances are you'd get at least 40 different visions if you want to poll them. Of course feelings will be hurt but you have to decide between hurting yours or your mom's/other family members'.

I accidentally hit "reply" LOL"

On the one hand: 10 years from now, (maybe less) mom won't care much (or even won't remember) about the fact she planned your wedding her way but, on the other hand, you would resent her for the rest of your life... hopefully, you'll get the reception you want, the dress you want and so on, good luck. 🤞

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Yes this. Push the wedding back and save your own money to do it your way! If being married is something you want now, go to the courthouse, and have a reception down the road when you have saved up!

If you’re okay with a long engagement you can crunch the numbers and see how long it would take you and your fiancé to save up. My husband and I had a 17 month long engagement after we crunched the numbers of what each vendor would roughly cost us. (Always round up. It’s better to oversave than undersave) We went through our budget after bills, expenses were paid to see how much we could put aside after each check and did the math to see how many month it would take us to save the amount we would roughly need for our wedding. You both can take this approach and have a wedding you will be happy with that is your vision.

Hey love! While I'm sure you really appreciate her paying for all of this, it seems like she wants to do it HER way even though it is YOUR wedding. That is why my FH and I are funding our wedding ourselves because I especially knew that once my mom was going to pay she was definitely going to have a say and I was not having that lol!!
If you do plan on going to Vegas let me give you some venues for cheap!
If you want to do a short and simple The Little Vegas Chapel is good. Price starts at $75 for a short and simple one that lasts 5-10 minutes. If you want to upgrade a little more with quite a bit of incentives that come along with it such as flowers, photographer, video, limo service to the marriage license bureau and back, etc. then I believe the next one is like $250. And their chapel is SUPER cute! And they do provide an Elivs package wedding lol.
If you are looking into something a little more than just a Vegas wedding you can also do something OUTSIDE of the strip. Vegas has BEAUTIFUL mountains and sceneries outside of the city, but not TOO far. 30-40 mins away tops from the strip. I suggest looking into Cactus Collective or Las Vegas Elopements. They do elopements and microweddings. I HIGHLY recommend looking into one of them, but decide asap if you wanna book with them because it is wedding season and a lot of brides are going to be getting married in 2022. Their prices start at $1,800 and up. Depending on which company you book with, what add ons you would like, and location. But they pretty much take care of EVERYTHING. My best friend's sister recently got married and it was through Cactus Collective and from what my best friend said it was SO beautiful that she would consider booking with them when she finds her man. And if my FH and I were to elope I would have 100% gone with one of these companies.
Feel free to message me if you have anymore questions! I live in the Vegas area and I can give you more tips and any other suggestions.

View Quoted Comment Thank you for the amazing tips!! I’ll show my fiancé tonight!