Opinions please...
I am really hating wedding planning. We don't have a lot of money to spare, and families aren't helping us, so we really don't want to go wild. I have a somewhat difficult past with my family, and try and limit visits with them to 3-4 times a year, so we wanted to do a 'just the two of us' wedding, but this created a lot of upset from some family members when they started questioning us about our plans. This really pissed me off, as people assumed they would be invited, and then started making comments when I said there would be no fancy do, disco etc. We decided we would do it in a registry office as this is considerably cheaper than hiring a venue and spending £500 on top for the attendance of the registrar.
There's a registry office about 15 miles away, but it's literally just a bleak office block and not really somewhere I wanted to get married in. The other choice was 30 miles away, in a nice old manor house with picturesque gardens, so we booked this one.
In terms of a reception, we thought it would be easiest to go to a pub (much to the chagrin of my father, who again, thinks it should be something posh), as we will only have about 15 guests. However, after having checked out the area and been to a few locals, they're all quite busy, run down, and just not what we want in terms of food.
We've decided we would rather go to our favourite country pub near where we live, which we love. The food is nice, it has a nice garden, and it's our day, so why not?
Is it too much to ask people to drive 30 miles after the ceremony to go to the pub? My family already looks down on me for not hiring an expensive hotel, so I'm thinking of telling them they don't have to come if they don't want to. The whole thing is getting me down a bit, it doesn't feel like our day anymore!