Where to begin? I thought that weddings were supposed to be joyous and bring people together. This whole experience has only caused stress, fighting, and hurt feelings all around.
My fiance' and I started planning our wedding, and his mom and other people were causing so many problems. We felt like we couldn't win - either we did what we wanted and offended person A, did the other option and offended person B, or chose the option that offended neither A nor B, but was not at all what we wanted.
In addition, the wedding was getting just so so so expensive (we would have to foot the whole bill), and with all of the trouble that people were causing, we started to re-evaluate why we were throwing this big wedding for our families, who were making the whole experience miserable.
So we decided to scrap the traditional wedding and avoid going into debt. The only way that we would be able to have a honeymoon is to have a small ceremony without a reception. So we decided have a small, low-cost ceremony at the honeymoon destination. Everyone all around thought that it was a financially-smart decision (they all know that our finances are tight as it is and do not want to see us go into debt over a 4-hour reception). With the saved money from the scrapped reception, we told my parents that we would pay for their flight and expenses, and they told us how excited and on board with this plan they were and how happy they were to hear that we were happy about the wedding once again!!
The very next day, my mom 180-ed on me and sent an email saying that she doesn't want to come, that her age and mobility issues [she has a bad leg] will hold us back (we told her that we would make the entire trip amenable and accessible to her and would be happy just to have her), that we were being inconsiderate of her wants, and that we are adults so if we want to elope fine, but she is rescinding her offer to wedding dress shopping with me!!! I tried to explain how we wanted her there and would do everything to make the trip comfortable and fun for her, but now she won't even talk to me or answer my phone calls, and she has apparently been complaining about me to the rest of the family, who are now all asking me what I "did to Mom." My parents are blaming the whole thing on me, saying that "I am causing lots of problems." All we are trying to do it get married.
With all of this, we feel even worse than we did initially. We are now even more opposed to throwing an expensive wedding just to please our families, going into debt, and therefore having no money for a honeymoon.
What do we do?
DO WE ELOPE ??