To elope or not to elope?

[Jollyhockeysticks1]

My fiance and I are 33 and 35 and have been engaged for 2 years. No plans to have kids, just a DDog. Absolutely zero wedding plans have been made so far, friends and family are constantly asking us about what we're planning.

The main reasons why I'm dragging my heels is firstly that I simply can't be bothered with all of the planning. I read about all of the wedding dramas, and bitchy hen dos on here and it really puts me off! I have a few different friendship groups, many of whom love a drink. I find the idea of mixing everyone including my partner's medic colleagues and my family members who are certainly not party animals soo awkward and cringeworthy!

I think it's absolutely ridiculous that the average wedding is now £23,700 and that I would prefer to spend the money on travel/property. We would have a lot of people to invite on both sides. We have attended weddings with significantly less guests than we would have to ask that have all been over £30,000. I hate the idea of being ruthless with the guest list and offending people who don't make the cut due to financial constraints. My mum has suggested to just invite family, but our friends who have married have spent loads on ensuring that we have a lovely day and I would just feel rude. Plus I would want my friends there if I did choose to get married!.

I think weddings have become out of hand from a cost perspective. I also think the concept of a cash bar is incredibly tacky. All of my friends who are not from the UK are shocked by our culture of making guests pay for their own alcohol to a party they have been invited to. I also wince at making my friends pay hundreds to attend a hen party or thousands plus annual leave to attend a destination wedding.

Conversely I am worried about missing out on a major milestone and regretting it later in life. As you can probably tell, I am a chronic overthinker and I falter a little when I see people's beautiful wedding photos. My mum keeps reminding me that my 90 year old grandmother would love to see me married and so would all of the family.

My absolute ideal wedding would be to go to Vegas with perhaps 7 of my closest friends and my partner's closest friends plus both of our siblings and just have a party. This would exclude older family members as they would not be interested in going to Vegas. The other option is just to tell nobody and elope entirely on a big holiday we have planned early next year. Please help!

How long a lunch break do you have?! 😆

I honestly never comment on these posts but I'm quite suprised by people's reactions in the comments.

My partner and I are 30 and have been together 10 years, having just got engaged last year. We are in a very similar situation to you. We have a fixer upper house we love but the price of a wedding vs renovating our kitchen are comparable and I find the justification difficult. We'd also considered eloping as my partner hates being the centre of attention.

Alternatively we have a guest list of about 30 people we'd consider, but being the age we are that means 7 additional under 4's which to me who doesn't have kids sounds stressful. I've equally had some awkward conversations with family about how if the kids aren't invited some of them won't come. Rock and a hard place I think!

I would say if you can keep it under 40 we found several smaller country house venues that literally give you the space and you get in catering and food which sounds fun. We'd got reasonable quotes of under 4K for just the venue with accomodation for our guests which seems reasonable (if you'd consider south wales/hereford I can recommend them).

We're still undecided a year later, I know the grooms mother would be heartbroken if we eloped, but as a lot of our guests would be travelling farther I feel like we need to put on more than just a registry office and a pub meal. I completely get your predicament!

My dad offered me money to elope...

You've snapped at people who've mentioned it but maybe dig more into what your partner wants and be led by that. If they are just saying "whatever you want darling" and neither of you has a scooby, that is an argument against anything lavish and extortionate.

Plan D? E? split the difference. Marry in a registry office and invite lots of people to a celebratory lunch at a restaurant you like. Friends of mine booked out their favourite restaurant. Best wedding reception ever. It doesn't need to be a 12 hour event.

Wedding definitely dont need to bankrupt you. Im similar age to you (34) but have been married for 12 years. My wedding was less than 10k. I do appreciate a lot has happened in the last decade + economy wise however I wouldn't do anything differently.
Immediate family only, gorgeous little town hall, hired a hall with outside space had outdoor games and then a hog roast van and ice cream van, we didn't have a band or a dj we played our own music, glad we did what we did as we bought a house about 6 months post wedding with money we saved instead and had our first dc when I was 26 and had saved alot for mat leave.
On the other hand, I know people who only stayed together until the wedding debt was paid and split!

Apart from possibly your parents no one else cares if you get married or when/when/how as long as its not costing them a fortune to attend. So just get on with it. Or don't. It makes no difference to anyone else.

The vast majority of people don’t have “bitchy hen dos” or spend £30k or demand people unwillingly use their annual leave to travel to a destination wedding.

You want contradictory things -
Invite all your friends who have invited you to their events, but not invite people as it’s cringe.
Not expect people to travel to a destination wedding but also go to Vegas
Invite family - but go somewhere where family are so uninterested in that even a wedding won’t drag them there
Not expect guests to spend a lot - but make it far away
Invite family only - but also invite friends - but not friends as cringe - and not family as too far
You don’t want a cash bar but you don’t want to spend a lot of money

The first question is do you want to be married
If “yes” move on to second question - budget - do you want to spend £500? -£3000? £10000? £40000? - your budget is a major factor in the type of wedding you will have.
Decide who it is important to have with you - parents? Siblings? Wider family? Friends? How many people? Are you willing to ask those people to travel (if not then forget about a destination wedding immediately) and will those people be able to physically travel and use their annual leave (medics maybe not) - again, you can’t have a destination wedding with these people if they can’t go.
Once you have determined your budget and have an idea of numbers then you will have shut some doors.
You need to minus certain things from your budget that are fixed (fees, room hire, new clothes, transport costs, accommodation costs ) and roughly work out a budget per head - this decides what you can have. If you’ve chosen a lot of guests and a small budget then you aren’t going to vegas and covering all expenses - you are in a community centre with a buffet. If you have chosen a small guest list with a big budget then you can have a big venue with expensive catering and a free bar.
It sounds like the best thing to do is have an intimate parents and siblings only wedding in a nice but small venue with a lovely meal and cake and drinks and organise a mates holiday to vegas next year.
You are an overthinker (I have some sympathy - I am also a sufferer) but your problems (I want to invite my friends, but don’t want to manage a load of groups of friends who are strangers to each other, or spend £30k, or feel I’m being a demanding bridzilla forcing everyone to come to my party, or have a cash bar, but also don’t want a load of pissed up people and a £20k bar bill) are problems we all face when planning our wedding. Sometimes you just need to shit or get off the pot.

i think eloping or a small overseas wedding sounds lovely. But if you decided to have a wedding here, it doesn’t have to be a huge event - you could have a register office wedding and then hire a nice local restaurant for the afternoon for a meal for about 20 close friends and family, and it wouldn’t cost a fortune. We had a diy wedding and hired the upstairs room in our local pub. Our mothers did all the food, we bought supermarket wine and soft drinks and the pub landlord gave us a barrel of beer as a wedding present. We made tapes of your favourite music and a friend brought his sound system. It was a long time ago but the whole day cost a fraction of what friends were spending and it is still the best wedding I’ve been to .

We eloped, but didn't involve anyone at all, and that way it was scrupulously fair.

My side and DH's side of the family wouldn't mix well. We have huge families (mum is one of 9), so couldn't invite aunties, uncles, cousins, as we'd end up with a guest list of 200 people.

We could have just done parents and siblings. But my parents are divorced and my dad has remarried. I tolerate my "step mum" and we get on fine, but I certainly wouldn't want her at my wedding, but wouldn't upset my dad by excluding her.

We couldn't think of a way of making it fair. Added to that, I'm not a wedding person, have never dreamt of getting married, and didn't want any work or expense.

So we did a true elopement with strangers as witnesses.

Dad thinks it's brilliant. Our other parents might have been put out a bit, but we've always lived life on our own terms and noone (close to us) has ever attempted to share their views on it with us!

We're still together after 20 years with one another and 11 years of marriage, and several friends who had big weddings have since divorced.

I will add, to do what we've done you need a will of iron. I've had comments from total strangers about how they'd be absolutely devastated if their kids eloped and it would break their heart. My response is always "fair enough 🤷🏼‍♀️".

Did you take him up on offer? Did he attend? @klim

1st wedding I eloped. That's it nothing else.

2nd wedding casual destination wedding, booked villa for us all, booked wedding, booked restaurant and wore shorts. But when we got back had a party where all invited for BBQ and band.

You can have a big wedding and it not cost loads of money! I’m getting married next year, 60 day guests and 120 evening. The ceremony is in our town hall, then bus everybody to our local pub where we’ve hired the entire garden with a marquee. There’s a drinks and nibbles reception after the ceremony, a drinks reception at the pub, bbq in the day then a cold buffet in the evening. All in with absolutely everything we’re looking around 8k which feels comfortable for us to give people a nice experience without being completely ridiculous. We are having a cash bar once the free drinks run out but you could put a couple of grand behind the bar if you wish. Costs very much depend on how many guests and where you are located. Food is the biggest cost for ours. We are DYI’ing some bits but nothing major, we’ve been gifted flowers, my dress is from Vinted, a friend got us a great deal on our wedding rings, we’ll have a supermarket made to order cake and the reception venue hire is very very cheap. Join some budget Facebook wedding groups, you’d be surprised to see how lovely a wedding you can have with all the guests you want for a much smaller cost xx

I have done both! Eloped in Hawaii (as I was never keen on big weddings) and then we spent £40k for a wedding with 100 people (my partner really wanted a proper wedding with his family). Both had their own beauty in a different way but the one with everyone was honestly the best day ever! Having our closest people from every stage of our lives celebrating with us was so so so special! Looking back I believe that it was so worth spending all that money. I have zero regrets!

Weddings don't have to be expensive.

We got married at a registry office in a pretty little town about a 45 minute drive away from where we live, with 30 of our family, we met everyone an hour before the wedding and had a little picnic in the park where we did photos to get them out of the way while everyone mingled, then after the wedding we treated everyone to meal and drinks at a lovely pub/cafe round the corner from the registry office, who let us use their private hire space.. we pre-ordered the food and the pub were absolutely amazing at looking after us.

Then we travelled back and had a party that night for 90 people in the evening at a cafe where we live which offers exclusive private party hire in the evenings, the cafe did the buffet food, and we supplied our own music (party speaker with pre-done playlists) and entertainment (casino).

The whole day, including everything, came in at £4500.

Bottom line is, you can do anything you like with no justification to anyone, we didn't want hen dos or stag dos, as we felt like we would be paying for a party three times! So we threw everything at the day instead, If you carefully plan everything yourselves and skip all the unnecessary bullshit you can have an amazing wedding at a price point of your choosing.

We paid less than a £1000 for ours including rings
Only a handful of guests knew we were getting married, even our children didn’t know until half an hour before.
No presents, no hassle and no regrets.

We eloped and it was fantastic. I'd strongly suggest the option #2 of doing it yourselves on holiday. We did a similar trip, and it was stress free, all about us, and just wonderful. A few months later we had drinks at a local pub with family/friends to celebrate. Low key, low cost, and we don't regret it for a second.

We eloped, invited the neighbours to be witnesses. Best day ever, no regrets (been 3 decades now). Cost us next to nothing, zero pressure, and was great fun.

I highly recommend eloping!

Have you thought about a small ceremony - parents, siblings, grandparents...followed by a celebration meal somewhere nice? That way you get the dress, nice pics. Small bouquet. But not massive cost, pressure or planning!

I think friends will totally understand. I think family less so. I would be devastated if my daughter or sister got married without telling me/inviting me even if it were just to the registry office/actual wedding part.

I do know of people who have had: 12 people each/ registry office and nice pub afterwards /garden party wedding (admittedly they live in rural wales and have a big garden where people could camp) for between £1-3k including their outfits and people who have gone for a less than £5k wedding.

My cousin got married in Vegas. He said it was the best decision he made (other than proposing to his DW)

If I was you I'd get married at the registry office with just a handful of closest family including your grandmother. All your parents will be chuffed to have been there and forever you'll remember your dear old grandmother seeing you wed.
Nice lunch after in a local restaurant.

Then bugger off to Vegas and have a phenomenal time, either just the two of you or close friends.

If you still feel bad about not entertaining your friends, have a cracking party when you get back.

The single most important thing to remember about all of this is that it's only your wedding day. The marriage is the most important thing.

My son eloped and they had a beautiful beach wedding, they are planning a big party on their first anniversary.
You don’t need a grand wedding if you don’t want to.
why stress out thinking of others, it’s your day.
Not theirs.

Just do what you two want. Forget everyone else.

When we were getting married someone told me that with weddings you'll always offend at least one bugger so you might as well do it in style: do what you want and offend all the buggers.

We didn't listen. We didn't want the wedding day but let family (parents!) talk us into "a small wedding". 😬Although we did stand firm on having close friends and family and not random great aunts or second cousins that we only see at weddings and funerals.

I regret not standing my ground. It was 'fine' but I didn't enjoy it. It wasn't me. I hated the fuss and attention. If we were to do it again we would just go away and do it quietly just ourselves.

Stop thinking about who might think this, who would want that. What do you want? What is immediate gut response? Do that.

Our wedding was us, and 2 family members each. We bought a dress, suit and a bunch of flowers, plus rings.
Went for a lovely breakfast all together in the morning. Got married, watched England vs Wales rugby in a pub in the afternoon. Nice meal in the evening. Didn't tell anyone else until afterwards. No stress, low cost.
No regrets.

I have never met a couple that regretted eloping

Maybe because those that do aren’t couples anymore. I regret eloping. It was a genuine elopement, not just a small wedding, and it upset several people very close to us. We aren’t a couple anymore.

My second wedding was much bigger, well over 100 guests, and was worth every penny spent on it. Including the all-day free bar.

We decided, on the advice of our accountant & solicitor, to get married 16 yrs ago (we’d been together for years & years)
A fortnight beforehand we went in & booked the registry office.
We had our two friends as witnesses, and our two kids, 8 & nearly 4.
We wrote our own vows, separately from each other, and were delighted when they turned out to be similar.
We had a beautiful soundtrack of songs that meant a lot to us both.
We went for a lovely meal straight after & then when home we sent ready prepared emails & texts.
A few neighbours came in for drinks.
It was a stress free, beautiful day.
Some people were really annoyed that we hadn’t confided in them (but no-one has mentioned it since)
A few months later we had a wonderful holiday (belated honeymoon) with our kids.
We all had nice, smart clothes, some flowers, and memorable music, everything was perfect.
It probably cost less than £1,000 (cost was a minor issue, it was the fuss of families that made us chose to go it alone)
We’ve never regretted it!
Follow your gut instincts!