I'm a newbie on here, though I've poked around the boards for a while. I have a huge dilemma, and I'm not sure what to do. Apologies in advance for a long post.
FI and I got engaged in March and were planning a wedding for this November. We had so many problems along the way (budget, venue cancelled our date on us, family troubles, the list goes on) that we decided to postpone the wedding until after we bought a house. The idea being we could have the wedding in our own backyard. I don't want a big wedding - maybe around 50 people, and just a casual and fun backyard BBQ type thing. However, because of the crazy stress and family freak-outs etc, now my fiance wants to elope. I totally understand his reasoning, but I've never wanted to elope and I want the people we care about there for our big day.
The issues:
1. Budget - he doesn't believe we can do it on a budget, though I (maybe naively) think we can.
2. He hates being the center of attention and has a lot of anxiety about it.
3. Family - A huge issue is that my family wasn't the most welcoming to him when we first started dating (long story though theyve since come around) and he is still bitter about it. There is also some animosity between him and one of my siblings. Most of our families are from out of state, and he doesn't think a lot of them will come.
I still really want a wedding... is that dumb? I am pretty sure everyone will play nice for the big day. He's not budging though, and we are at a complete impass. Anytime we try to bring it up, we end up arguing. I really want to marry him...should I just give in and elope?