So from the very beginning of our engagement, fiance and I have been going back and forth on the size of our wedding. Some days we talk about just having my parents, my best friend, his parents and brother (the people we could not imagine getting married without). We would fly out to somewhere neat, possibly Arches National Park and just have a simple meaningful ceremony and then go out to eat. I would still wear a wedding dress and we would have a party when we return (but not a fancy reception). We both felt that we lost a sense of intimacy and meaning when he proposed in front of all of our friends as we were more concerned with everyone else than the actual proposal. We do not want this to happen on our wedding day.
Then other days I wonder if I would regret not having a more "traditional" wedding, as I can fly somewhere neat anytime and I only get this one chance for a wedding. This would include about 50 friends. Presently we are frustrated with many of our friendships so sometimes it is hard to want to spend so much energy and money on having what they will consider a "fun party". And I know that five years from now, our lives will have changed and who knows if we will still be close with these people. The FMIL drama started this weekend so it just added to my hesitations in having a larger wedding. I think we are just having a hard time sacrificing the meaning of our special day for the sake of friends that we are presently frustrated with. Example: FMIL insisted that having our wedding on a Sunday (our 4 year anniversary) was inconsiderate to our guests, none of which work M-F 9-5 jobs. This is not why the drama started btw, she is welcome to voice her opinion and I do want to be a great hosts to our guests if we decide to go this route.
To add to the problem, his mom threw us a very informal engagement party already (at his parent's house, facebook invites, byob). I felt it was too early to have the party since we hadn't really finalized our decision about the size of the wedding but regretfully just went along with it. We were not expecting gifts but did receive three gifts and two bottles of champagne. We had about 25 people in attendance. I do not want to break any rules about inviting people to pre wedding parties but not the actual wedding so the decision to have the intimate vs larger wedding may be a moot point. True?
Feedback appreciated! Just from typing it out, I can see I am leaning one way over the other but if I typed this tomorrow, it would probably read the other way around!
