My fiance and I have decided that we don't want a long, extensive wedding. We want something more simple with less people. Now, I would love to be able to feed everyone a good meal - but being able to pay for the wedding ourselves limits these sorts of things. My grandparents have offered to pay for the reception. My fiance says NO. He doesn't want anyones help. While this is all fine and good, I'm torn. We're full time students and we work. I have $5,000 saved, which is our only savings at the moment. He has a truck in the shop that's going to cost at least $1,000 to fix.
We decided that we were going to have a cake and punch reception that would cut down the cost and make it possible for us to pay for it without anyone's help.
Here's the problem - the point that my grandmother brought up. It takes over an hour - maybe 2 - for most of my family to get here. Some of them are coming out of state. My maid of honor will be coming in from Canada. Even if the ones who are driving in eat before they come.. that's still two hours, plus the three ish hour reception, plus a two hour ride back. That's a long time.
My grandmother said that if we don't have food at our wedding, she's going to have food catered to her house for an "after party" of sorts for these people. Either way, she's putting out extra money.
I haven't brought all this up to my fiance yet. I'm still trying to decide what would be better - to accept their help and try and talk him into it. Or to just go with what we had planned and let her have her afterparty.
Advice? Suggestions? Has anyone else been in the same place?