Should we just elope?

lbrazzle

My fiance and I are in the midst of planning our dream wedding at an amazing location in the woods! We have the date set for August and have put the deposit on the venue. We haven't confirmed anything else yet though. My parents have offered to cover the cost. So far, their involvement and more specifically my mother's involvement with the planning process has been extremely challenging. They are both very anxious, overly cautious people and are already bombarding me with every possible thing that can go wrong with the wedding, legally or otherwise. They keep wanting to control every decision I've been trying to make, demanding changes to our potential planners contract (they even have my attorney looking at it) and being obsessive about unimportant details. This is NOT how I imagined our wedding planning going, especially this early in the process, it's really taking a toll on me...I have talked with them about my concerns and my mom says she will stay out of it from now on but knowing her, I'm not sure it's possible. Should we take all this as a sign for things to come? If this is how it might be, I'm not sure it's worth it. Should we just elope instead? Any advice would be helpful please? I feel really stuck...

thejucheidea

Whoever pays has the say, so either you can have your dream wedding with your mom being puppetmaster, or you can pay for it yourself. If all you can afford is an elopement and you're okay with that, then go for it. If you think it's going to cause horrible, long-lasting drama with your parents, however, I'd just suck it up and realize that it's ONE day of your life.

clarke10

If she said she will stay out of it I think you should give her a chance to prove that. If she breaks her word, deal with it then.

Wzz

lbrazzle said:

My fiance and I are in the midst of planning our dream wedding at an amazing location in the woods! We have the date set for August and have put the deposit on the venue. We haven't confirmed anything else yet though. My parents have offered to cover the cost. So far, their involvement and more specifically my mother's involvement with the planning process has been extremely challenging. They are both very anxious, overly cautious people and are already bombarding me with every possible thing that can go wrong with the wedding, legally or otherwise. They keep wanting to control every decision I've been trying to make, demanding changes to our potential planners contract (they even have my attorney looking at it) and being obsessive about unimportant details. This is NOT how I imagined our wedding planning going, especially this early in the process, it's really taking a toll on me...I have talked with them about my concerns and my mom says she will stay out of it from now on but knowing her, I'm not sure it's possible. Should we take all this as a sign for things to come? If this is how it might be, I'm not sure it's worth it. Should we just elope instead? Any advice would be helpful please? I feel really stuck...

I kind of feel like you're being a little short sighted about this. i get that looking at the legalities may not be romantic, but it IS their money and they sound like they want to make sure their money is protected. i'm not sure what you mean when you say that your mom is obsessing about unimportant details, but looking at contingency plans doesn't sound like an unimportant detail. can you imagine, for example, how many outdoor brides lose money on a wedding that was ruined or cancelled because they failed to hink about back up plans for bad weather?

 

i think you need to get this out of your system, but then you need to probably take your parent's advice if you're taking their money. it doesn't sound like they're trying to ruin your wedding, they are only trying to protect it.

lbrazzle

@Wzz, I won't get into further details here but my parents are extremely fearful people, have been my whole life, what they have been doing with this wedding has gone past the point of "only trying to protect me" and into paranoia. For example, my dad has been saying how if we don't ask the wedding planner to make a bunch of changes to HER business contract, "she will trip in the woods and sue us all". Hopefully that example (and there's many more) helps clarify how crazy this has gotten.