i want to elope with no guests. He insists on having a 2nd ceremony for our parents.

Marriage is full of compromising. Whether you think it’s a waste, it sounds like it’s important to your FH. Did the two of you both want to elope alone or did he initially want parents invited? If it were me, I’d probably just invite parents to the elopement and do one ceremony that includes them.

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He doesn't want to invite them to the elopement because the location is somewhat inaccessible, and he doesn't want to inconvenience them. He's positive inviting them wouldn't work.

I'm more looking for advice on how to make the 2nd ceremony look legitimate to them, and not be judged for it being so simple.

Could you livestream it for them? Then they won't have to Fly and you won't need to do it twice.

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That's what I said, and he didn't like that idea

Are you flexible to have your parents there for the ceremony? I don’t see a need for a second one but if having his parents there is important to him I think you should find a compromise. If his parents don’t want to fly out for it they won’t.

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He doesn't want to invite them for the real ceremony because he thinks it would be selfish to invite them to the an rather inaccessible location where we're getting married.

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If you invite them, and they decide it's inaccessible, then it's on them. Otherwise, I wouldn't get married and then put on a "fake" ceremony. You and FH need to get on the same page about this.

View Quoted Comment I agree with Becky. He is assuming it won’t work for them without even asking. I’m assuming you and him agreed upon the original venue together - did he bring up these concerns at that time?

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He did, but we both want to get married at that location. He just assumed that we would have a second ceremony. I just recently came to the understanding that was non-negotiable, and not a suggestion. Having his mom there is more important than having a wedding in the location I prefer.

He's POSITIVE it won't work and that it's an inconvenience, and REFUSES to ask

View Quoted Comment Well then he needs to make a compromise. This wasn’t the original agreement. He also isn’t even willing to *ask* her if she’d be able to make it. He needs to talk to his mom and ask if she’d be able to come to the original wedding. There’s literally no point in planning a second ceremony when you don’t even have confirmation she can’t come. And if she does confirm she can’t make it to that location, then cross that bridge.

This sounds like something you guys need to talk about more so you can both find a compromise. You're obviously pretty upset and don't like what he's thinking, and it seems as though he's also adamant that he doesn't want his parents at your actual ceremony at that location. There's nothing wrong with either of you wanting those things and having them both be non-negotiable... it just means that you're both going to have to give up something.

At this point your communication is more important than whatever is decided for your ceremony. This is just one small part of planning, and if it's hard for you two to come up with compromises then it's going to be difficult to plan together.

View Quoted Comment I completely agree with this.
Sometime compromises means no one gets exactly what they want.
If it were me (but it’s not so take it with a grain of salt) I’d do the elopement alone. It sounds like it’s a remote meaningful spot - can you get a gorgeous photo? Then host the parents to an amazing dinner. Like…really wonderful. Dress really nice, in your wedding outfits of possible. Have the table set nicely, etc. Give them the photo there, make it a super special dinner with nice touches.

Why did he agree to get married in that location if he thought his parents couldn't make it? He's being very hypocritical and causing you more problems than he's solving.

"He wants to invite them because he doesn't want them to feel left out" is not a reason to invite someone, IMO. There is a difference between "it is really important to me for my parents to be there when we are married" and "I don't want my parents to be upset that they weren't included." This is your (you and your fiance's) wedding, no one else's. It should be about what you want and what is important to you two.

If this is the true reason for including the parents, then I say elope, just the two of you, and do not include the parents. Also I would be asking myself (and my fiance) the following question: how is inviting them to your actual marriage ceremony in a hard to get to location more selfish than inviting them to a "fake" wedding that is just for show and has no real meaning?

For what its worth, we planned a full wedding, but then Covid happened, so we ended up having a Covid elopement on our original date last May followed by a wedding celebration this June, both at our wedding venue. Pre-Covid, we actually considered eloping on our own and then throwing a big party afterward at a later date. My idea of an elopement was to get married at some dramatic wild scenic location which would likely have not been accessible to our families, but he wanted to have his parents there, and it turned out the cost of throwing a party that felt like a wedding reception wasn't going to be any cheaper than doing an entire wedding, so it ended up making more sense for us to just have a more traditional all-in-one outdoor wedding followed immediately by a reception at the same venue. Then Covid came, my mom was diagnosed with cancer (just 10 days before our wedding), and we ended up having a super small "elopement" ceremony (us, our parents, photographer, officiant, and a couple friends), but without any of the actual benefits of eloping, the biggest of which is getting to use an incredible location that would never work for a larger group and also having a very private event where you get to be a little selfish and don't have to worry about being a perfect host. Instead, we went to our venue because it was available to us and had easy parking, and tried our best to accommodate our families, which ended up with my mom's friend driving her to our house and both of them staying with us for the weekend, so us cooking for them and hosting them in our tiny 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom house (everything was shut down due to Covid), my mom trying to be helpful but just getting in the way and stressing me out to no end (cue screaming crying bride-to-be moments before her "wedding"), and then his mom was so nervous she wouldn't even hug us or let his dad hug us, which is really depressing and demoralizing, btw. I think it would have been so much more fulfilling to have just eloped on our own in our own way, but we kind of tried to find a compromise to include our parents (at the time my mom's prognosis was unclear, and with Covid we weren't certain we'd be able to celebrate with her in the future if she wasn't there for the event itself) and MOH/BM and that's exactly what it felt like. When we did our wedding celebration this year we had a redo ceremony so that we could have some of things we missed out on like having our friends there and getting to walk down the aisle and stand under a beautiful floral arbor (we made it obvious we were already married and didn't try to "fake" exchange rings or anything), but it didn't really mean anything and was mostly just for show and to fill some void Covid had left. While both events went well overall, I felt a real sense of loss and sadness for our elopement, and kind of numb for most of our wedding celebration. I am certain that if we had the wedding we planned with the people we planned and it was all "real" and happening in real time, I would have felt much stronger emotions and it would have just been a much more positive experience overall for me. Of course it was just an awful situation and nothing I could control; we did the best we could with the hand we were dealt, but I never would have chosen this path nor would I recommend anyone else go down it.

I think you and your fiance need to focus on what you both want and what is really important to each of you. Put aside thoughts of "what will our families think" and focus on more of "how does this choice make ME feel, how does it make YOU feel." As others have mentioned, you can absolutely do a beautiful, wild intimate elopement, just the two of you, in a place that means something to you, and then do dinner or some other event to celebrate later. No one else has to witness your vows in order to celebrate your marriage with you.