Op - just remember, most people judging you in this thread have already had their wedding day the way they wanted it. The people who are excited to celebrate with you will be there - no need to worry about the rest!

Anonymous wrote:We can’t go to the court house. In our religion you have to have a ceremony in the church. It will only be with us and 2 other people. Also the B and B is only 2 hours from people and the bride and groom are paying for the entire cost of the venue and rooms for the wedding party which was our choice. We plan to enjoy the day.

Honestly, just get married and have a nice party close to where most people are. Only 2 hours is quite a drive for people who don't want to stay overnight. Bridesmaids is over the top. By then those people could have moved, gotten pregnant, started grad school, started a demanding new job. The weddings with many bridesmaids where you have a multi-day commitment are relics of rich people past where women were less likely to work and women were only worthy in society if they got married.

It's good that you are paying for the whole thing. You should still allow input from guests, but it would be far more obnoxious to be annoyed with your father's input if he was paying for the event.

Why not have a fancy party to celebrate that is convenient for everyone you want there and then go off as a couple to a B&B to have a long weekend doing everything you want. There is no reason to impose your beliefs of what is considered celebratory on your guests for several days.

I think what OP is planning is perfectly acceptable (and smart) given what is going on! And is the same thing many many other couples are doing this year.

Btw - I would love to go to a 3 night wedding and it wouldn’t matter to me whether the couple was married already! (In fact, the last two weddings I went to were for couples already legally married for various reasons — who care??)

Anonymous wrote:OP - I just got married a couple of weeks ago and completely understand your feeling. There is clearly no winning here. If you had posted that you ARE going to have a 50 person wedding, people would have lost their minds and said you were selfish. Everybody judges a COVID wedding, whether you have a courthouse or small ceremony. It sucks, and I definitely felt the lack of my family's own support as well.

Through it all, it made me realize even more that the most important thing that day was my now-husband and I getting married. It wasn't our Plan A, probably not even our Plan W, but it was a magical day nonetheless and I have no regrets (even if my family does). Just try to smile and nod, not engage in any arguments, and remember that you are starting a marriage. Congrats to you!

Same PP here. Go ahead and have your reception in 2022. If some people think it's anticlimactic and don't want to go, okay. You will still have people who are excited to celebrate you and your marriage and understand that it's not you being selfish, it's you wanting the reception you planned for pre-pandemic. You will also have people who roll your eyes at the idea. Again, it's not about them! Celebrate how YOU want to celebrate.

OP - I just got married a couple of weeks ago and completely understand your feeling. There is clearly no winning here. If you had posted that you ARE going to have a 50 person wedding, people would have lost their minds and said you were selfish. Everybody judges a COVID wedding, whether you have a courthouse or small ceremony. It sucks, and I definitely felt the lack of my family's own support as well.

Through it all, it made me realize even more that the most important thing that day was my now-husband and I getting married. It wasn't our Plan A, probably not even our Plan W, but it was a magical day nonetheless and I have no regrets (even if my family does). Just try to smile and nod, not engage in any arguments, and remember that you are starting a marriage. Congrats to you!

We can’t go to the court house. In our religion you have to have a ceremony in the church. It will only be with us and 2 other people. Also the B and B is only 2 hours from people and the bride and groom are paying for the entire cost of the venue and rooms for the wedding party which was our choice. We plan to enjoy the day.

Anonymous wrote:OP I think it's fine to do what you are planning.

A decade ago, I had a close friend who got married bedside to her dying father. Her and her now husband told no-one and went ahead and had a big church wedding and reception as originally planned.

Is that what you're going to do, OP? You aren't going to tell anyone you got married and then have a second wedding?

Anonymous wrote:OP I think it's fine to do what you are planning.

A decade ago, I had a close friend who got married bedside to her dying father. Her and her now husband told no-one and went ahead and had a big church wedding and reception as originally planned.

I think that’s very very different.

I think it would be smart to elope right now and then just have a reception in 2021.

OP I think it's fine to do what you are planning.

A decade ago, I had a close friend who got married bedside to her dying father. Her and her now husband told no-one and went ahead and had a big church wedding and reception as originally planned.

What’s the point in waiting until 2021? Just have a small beautiful wedding now. Waiting makes it seem more like it’s about some big show and presents than about a marriage and starting your lives together.

Also you mentioned bridesmaids. What?? You’re going to have bridemaids in 2022 after you’ve already been married a year? The celebrations I’ve seen after a couple elopes are just a dinner and party. No one has bridemaids or re-enacts a wedding.

You need to grow a thicker skin.

Anonymous wrote:I think that asking people to go to a B&B for three dats us asking a lot. Have a party one night. Not a year after you get married.

This. You can do what you want, but you don't get to be furious when people decline. What matters the absolute most is creating a happy and healthy union with your spouse. A reasonable expectation is for people to have the choice to spend a few hours with you celebrating. Once you turn into an expensive multi-day event it becomes a self-absorbed extravaganza especially with so many marriages ending in divorce. Once you have been to enough self0indulgent money blows followed by the divorce within 5 years, you start to wonder why people fall for the wedding industry BS. If you want the day to be just about you then elope. If you expect a bunch of people to take off from work and have their weekend plus revolve around you and your whims, then the polite thing to do is to actually allow input from those guests. Otherwise you end up with a very small group supporting you.

You’re having two weddings. Go to the courthouse now, have a wedding in 2022 (excellent date, BTW, anything before that is too early).

Anonymous wrote:I think that asking people to go to a B&B for three dats us asking a lot. Have a party one night. Not a year after you get married.

Yeah this is a horrible idea for a wedding (but one I have heard before). Seriously OP, imagine if a cousin or friend of your husband asked you to give up an entire weekend at a B&B in a location of their choosing? Brides and grooms always think this is a great idea since, of course, it’s their wedding. But for other people it’s a pain.

The reason you feel you're being judged is because you are and, deep down, believe there's a kernel of legitimacy to the judgement.

It's one thing to have a big celebration of your wedding at a time more people can safely join you. It's a different matter to go through a “big ceremony and reception” a year into your marriage - it's a pageant, a re-enactment, a performance, not a wedding. It reeks of attention-seeking, not celebration of a major life event.

I get how disruptive and disappointing it is to have an expectation for something and, through no fault of your own, not have that expectation met. Yet, that's where we are right now. Even if you have that “big ceremony and reception” a year into your marriage, it still will not meet your expectation because circumstances will have changed.