Hello Ladies. It's been a little while since I've been on the board and I hope you have all been doing well. I could use some advise. I apologize in advance, since this will be a long post.
It's important for my fiance to have a small family wedding. His mother, stepfather and sibling live in the same city as we do. However, my parents, sibling, his father & stepmother, our close friends, and extended families are scattered all over the world.
We decided together to book a cruise, to invite our close family members and a few friends to be with us and get married while spending quality time with the people we love. We are paying for this wedding ourselves, and it will still be much much cheaper(approximately 1/2 the cost) than anything we could do locally, with much less planning stress.
So... Here's issue #1-
We realize that many people we'd like to be with us, won't be able to, for whatever reason and that's ok. I still feel guilty about it---I worry that if I invite my extended family(aunts & uncles, cousins,etc) that they'll feel I'm being insensitive by throwing a destination wedding in this economy, imposing on them to attend, or fishing for gifts. If I don't invite them, I'm worried it will seem like a snub. Even with regard to my parents and my sister, I worry that I'm asking for too much for them to travel to attend my second wedding. I know my parents and sister would tell me I'm being silly, and they'd be there if I was being married on the moon, but I worry.
Issue #2-
My fiance has 4 step siblings. His stepfather and mother married when he was in high school, and his step brothers and sister were a little older and living on their own, so they've never gotten close. We see them at holiday parties with their respective partners and spouses. We all attended a get together this past weekend and were all discussing the youngest stepbrother's engagement to his long-time girlfriend. Which is great, except they are also planning to get married on a cruise within a few months of us.
We hadn't told everyone our plans, just FI's mother and stepfather. We mentioned that we'd also discussed doing the same. Even though there's no reason we can't be married in the same fashion, I now worry that for those guests that would overlap, they'd be put in a position to choose which wedding to attend, with potentially accompanying hurt feelings. I also worry that we are stealing this bride's thunder if we 'steal her idea' and marry first. After all, she is a first time bride and I am not, and this couple have been together a lot longer. I don't want to take anything away from her.
And I don't want to look like a copycat if we marry afterwards. Even though we began planning our wedding many months ago, and they've just begun.
All this is enough to make me just want to elope, but my future husband deserves to have the kind of wedding he wants.