Elope?

[VAgirl18]

Lately, I've been thinking about stopping wedding planning and just eloping. My mom has become a true "momzilla" and is trying to micromanage my day. There was a huge argument on where FI and I would get married and they refused to pay a cent or even come if it wasn't in DC. FI and I decided to let them win that argument (mistake #1 on our part) since I'm the only child and they've always wanted a glamorous DC event. We agreed only if we were able to make the choices on what we wanted and were able to make it our day. (I should have known this was doomed from the start.)

Then came the compromising and budget they put us on. Granted, I should be grateful that they are putting any amount of money towards the wedding, but it is completely unfeasible to have the type of wedding my parents expect in the DC area on the budget they placed on us. They want all of their friends there and because of the budget, we're limited to inviting 30 of our friends out of the 150 guests. To top it all off...they're expecting us to pay anything over the budget -- something they told us yesterday. With the cost of the reception and ceremony sites, food, open bar, and photographer, we've already reached their allocated budget.

My mom placed the deposit down on the site and we have until Wednesday to get our money back. I live across the country so I have no way of guaranteeing that my mom isn't going to take over everything and contact vendors without my knowledge.

I want to have the big day with everything but I don't feel good about any of this. Talking to her doesn't help, my dad just gets mad with all of this, and my fiance is worried about paying these overages.

Shouldn't a person be excited to plan their wedding and for all of the details? This has made me so stressed and sick that I've lost 10 lbs in under a week. I've been having dreams about the wedding and I wake up sweating. Something's obviously not sitting well with me about this.

I guess it seems obvious, but should I just say screw everyone and elope? Maybe take the money they budgeted for us and use it for a down payment for a house in the future?