[skylark]

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."