My husband and I eloped at the Justice of the Peace... We just had our 5th Anniversary.

Well, his mother was hella hella pissed. Wouldn't even speak to me.

My folks were bothered, not so much hurt, but they felt bad because they thought I alienated them from my future when they were proud of me and my husband.

My husband's father was like "YAAY I have a daughter now!!!" He has 2 sons and has always wanted a daughter.

I am all for elopements! One of my cousins was engaged a few years ago. That side of the family is very much into the social calender, and everything had to be planned just so.... The stress of it all ended up breaking up the relationship.....:eek:

Now, I know this doesn't happen to everyone who plans a wedding! I actually want my wedding to be huge! But it allowed me to see how crazy things can get!

The silver lining to all this: Its three years later now, and my cousin just got married to an amazing man! They eloped and then threw a huge party about a month later! It was great!

I wish you guys the best!

Good for you for talking to your Mom (again), VAgirl, and getting her to see more of the light. I hope things continue down the better path, remember, you can always drop and dash if things get too hectic, forget the down payments and whatnot, your mental health and a good start to your marriage are more important. You can always hop a flight to the Caribbean and get married on the beach somewhere or Vegas is open 24/7. Make the memory you want to carry for the rest of your days together. Good luck and please continue to update!!!!

Be careful my best friend went through this last year I was her MOH and we ended up canceling it three weeks before then rescheduling for two months later because her mom caused so many issues it affected my friend and her fiance.
thank god my mom said here is X amount of dollars for the big day, anything over that is for you to pay. But do whatever you want with X amount.

bump, as this is rather disconcerting

You'll get a kick out of this..my mom just signed a contract today with a photographer and videographer. It ate up half of the budget. :rolleyes:

Tell your mom she and your dad can renew their vows but your heading to Vegas to get married. :) Good luck!

When your wedding becomes unrecognizable, sometimes the only thing you can do is elope. That is what Mr. Skylark and I did and we don't regret it at all. We had a wedding date and location set and wanted only our parents, siblings and 1-2 close friends each. I have never dreamed of a big wedding (just wasn't that girl) and I was going to be graduating from law school during the same month, so I didn't really have the time to manage a huge wedding. Since it was going to be less than 10 people, we didn't feel the need to start planning anything more than 6 months in advance besides the location of the ceremony. We just wanted to go to a normal restaurant afterwards and eat off of their normal menu with a special but non-wedding cake. But plans started up for a bridal shower with people I didn't even know on the invite list... even when I told my family multiple times I didn't want one! And his extended family (from out-of-state) were threatening to just show up without being invited. It was a mess. And every week I had to hear some random question from my mother or other family like "What do you mean you're just going to order off of the menu, this is a wedding! No wedding cake? No limo to the reception?"

Mr. Skylark and I were in his home town visiting his family and had the idea to just get married there with his parents as the only witnesses. I called my sister and parents the day before and my mother was really the only one who made a huge deal about it (boy did she ever)... but then she got over it within a couple of weeks.

In the end, it was totally worth it. The ceremony was special to us, in a perfect location, and while his parents got to be there (husband is an only child so I understand why my husband didn't want to do that to them) it was still all about my relationship with my husband.

My mom tried to make my life miserable right afterwards -- literally from the moment we got off the plane. Then realized she had crossed the line when we refused to allow her in our home over the things she had said. Then all of a sudden she apologized and, like I already said, everything was back to normal within a couple weeks.

It is your wedding, make sure that in 20 years you remember that instead of "we did this to appease my mom, then we did this other thing to appease his dad, etc."

It's your wedding, not your mother's.

My MIL tried to take over my wedding too. She wanted our wedding to be ALL ABOUT HER (and by the way, there's some guy in a tux and some chick in a white dress here too). Sound familiar?

DH and I put our foot down and had the wedding we wanted. (It helped that we were paying.) But it sounds like it's too late for you to do that with your mom.

If I were you, I'd elope. Drop by the courthouse, then go to a nice romantic restaurant for a quiet dinner for two, then get a hotel room and shag like bunnies. ;) Or whatever the two of you would like to do. It's not worth the trouble of dealing with a Momzilla.

BTW, I just have to say that a videographer has to be the SINGLE BIGGEST WASTE OF MONEY in the wedding industry. Seriously, how often does a couple look at each other on a Tuesday night and say, "There's nothing on TV, how about we pop in the wedding video?"

Geez, back in '83 I just asked a co-worker who had a photog. hobby if he'd take pix and he said sure. No charge since he was coming anyway (and I paid for the developing and prints) but I bought him a bottle of Jack Daniels. I agree with the above poster about how often you look at the pictures. Even recently when both my kids graduated from HS I had fabulous portfolios made up of them in several outfits and kept them out for one year and now they are boxed. What a waste of a ton of money. When they came home from college they'd say "Mom, it's time to put these away".

This is your wedding not hers...elope now or forever hold your peace.:p

bump

i don't want this to end like i think it will

Oh, boy. I really should write a memoir someday.

I went into the ER last week highly sick and was just discharged today. Sick with a bacterial infection and disease that the doctors all assume was caused by stress.

Taking a step back from it all...when I have things figured out, I'll keep you all informed. Thanks for everyone's support.