Intimate Courthouse or big wedding

I honestly wish we would've gone to the courthouse and gotten married. My FH wanted to do that but I really wanted the wedding and I regret it, all the stress and headache that's gone into planning it all is a lot. I say save your money and do a courthouse wedding and then go on a fantastic honeymoon! But do what will make you both happy.

I say to find a midpoint, maybe have a smaller wedding so it's intimate but still has the loving people your fiance wants to be surrounded by. I was kinda on the courthouse wedding track but it meant a lot to my fiance to have our close family and friends there. Plus, just because you're having a non courthouse wedding doesn't mean you have to spend a ton of money. You can just have flowers for your wedding party, you can have a small wedding party, you can go to a restaurant for the reception, there's so many options!

Just remember to try and think about how your fiance feels as well. When talking about the wedding, rather than saying you want to have a courthouse wedding because it's cheap, say that you want to be cost effective with the wedding and not have a bunch of extra stuff that costs money. That kind of distinction can explain to your fiance why you feel the way you do without hurting his feelings

I was in your shoes and we went with the wedding. What mistake it’s stressful and expensive. My FH has been saying for the past month he should have listened to me. I have been saying I told you so. Im sure our wedding will be great as I have put in a lot of effort but i would have preferred a small wedding.

View Quoted Comment Thank you and i will talk to him

View Quoted Comment My fh wanted a Courthouse wedding soon as we got engaged but now he want a big wedding. And he know i get stressed to quickly.

View Quoted Comment Good luck with everything 😊

Thank you so much

I think there are ways to meet in the middle. I thought I wanted to elope and save money but even though some of the planning has been stressful, we are in this together and have so much support to help us along the way. I never got the chance to choose what I wanted for my first wedding so it has more meaning getting to marry the person I love in the way I want to. I have seen some truly beautiful weddings for little cost here. Good luck whatever you both decide.

We did both lol. We eloped at the courthouse 2/16/18 and had a 30 guest wedding in Vegas on 10/27/18. I loved both. I loved the small aspect of the Vegas wedding. I am glad we did it because our closest family and friends really wanted to be at our wedding. When we told my parents we eloped they were like you are still having the ceremony in Vegas right??? We eloped to get him on my insurance since his job was being dumb lol

Long story short you can have a very small wedding and not blow a budget.

My friends eloped first and then half a year later had a wedding. It doesn't need to be one or the other ya know?

Also if you want a less stressful wedding consider doing an all inclusive. After doing wedding photography the last thing I wanted to do was get stressed out with having to book numerous vendors and worry about decorations and food and all the small details. With ours all we did was pick the venue(ours had a few options with the company), which of 3 menus, flowers and cake flavors. They provided everything and we had to worry about nothing. It was THE BEST. We legit just had to show up in our wedding attire. We even had a 2 hour reception with a DJ with zero planning on our part.

We did both, no regrets. A small DW with 15 guests, and a local reception for 50 guests (not huge just bigger than our DW). Our reception was a full on formal dinner, drinks & dance party but you could do a simple cake & punch reception for everyone, saving a ton of headache & costs.

You could do a small wedding or medium (fewer than 25 or 50 guests) with the idea of doing a cake & punch reception for everyone else in 4-6 months after your wedding. But then see how you guys feel. If you’re too exhausted, just send our “marriage announcements” instead.

You can do a wedding in between. Intimate but still have the actual wedding itself not just sign papers in court. I personally wanted to elope at first because it was what I dream off and he wanted the wedding so we compromised and had a small wedding. I’m so glad we did! I couldn’t picture not having the wedding we did and it was just 47 guest including him and I.

I wanted a courthouse/super intimate wedding... he wanted a big thing. We settled on a medium sized wedding; 100ish people and just family and close friends. Our other compromise was to get married on a dock with just our parents, grandparents and siblings... but if we are inviting people, I had a couple others I would want there so our current plan won.

Maybe a happy compromise is what's in store. Not a courthouse but just close family/friends. Good luck.

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My fh wanted to go to the courthouse as well but I decided i wanted to have the whole wedding and walk down the aisle, I am now wishing i would have chosen to have a more intimate small elopement with close family and friends.

I really wish FH and I stuck to our original plan of marrying in a courthouse. It would've saved us lots of money and stress!

Maybe come to a compromise. Marry at a courthouse and rent a hall afterwards for a celebration with everyone. You can either have it catered or have a potluck. You'd have the privacy of the wedding ceremony in a courthouse and a medium sized party afterwards.

Best of luck!

We originally both wanted a much smaller wedding and I wish I had stuck to my guns on that. We gave in to family pressure to invite way more people and, honestly, it's too much money and stress. I don't regret having our wedding the way that it is currently, but I wish we had kept the guest count lower. Maybe meet in the middle and have the more traditional wedding he wants, but keep the guest count on the lower side.