Is It Too Late For Us To Back Out?

How much money will be wasted? can you get any of it back or transfer it to something else?

Have you sent out invites? In my opinion if people have already been invited to the event you can't "back out" unless you completely cancel and don't get married that day. Otherwise you're essentially uninviting all your guests and could ruin a lot of relationships

I think that you should absolutely do what feels right in your hearts, as long as you are both on the same page, and haven't sent out the invitations already. Do what makes you happy, and don't worry about what other people may think.

You might even be able to get some of your money back, if you can find someone to take over things like your venue, etc (if they are okay with it). I know there is a site that you can post your venue on and people will buy it from you, but don't remember the name.

Don't go through with it if you'll regret it years from now! I'm sure you'll be able to figure it out money wise!

The money already put down is gone and that won't change no matter what you do. No sense throwing good money after bad. So the question is what you really want your day to be like. If you would love an intimate wedding - and they are FAR from boring, believe me! - then make it happen. Some people might be disappointed but will understand, you'll be surprised. A wedding doesn't have to be a huge crazy party; they are all about the love between two people, and sometimes an intimate wedding is the most beautiful celebration of that.

Your happiness is what is important. Your sanity is important. If you don't want to host a big wedding then don't.

If you can't get your money back, might as well get your money's worth.

How much money will you lose out?

Did you already put money down for a certain amount of people? If not just invite less and use the same venue. Put up some kind of partitions of the room is too large

Depends- are you ok with losing that much money?

And I have to ask- why plan a big shin-dig to begin with?

We canceled a larger wedding for a tiny one with just immediate family. It was hard at first, but I have never regretted it for a moment. We're much happier spoiling the people we truly love and spending quality time with them. It no longer feels like putting on a big production and worrying about how I look in front of 100 people. We're also pretty happy to be spending 1/4 of what we originally budgeted. Yes, some money was wasted, but all in all we came out way ahead.

If save the dates or invitations have gone out or if you've verbally invited people, you're stuck. You can't cancel. If neither of those has happened, cancel.

Have you sent STDs or invitations? If so, you're stuck.

If not, you still have time to drastically cut your guest list to those who you want there.

If you haven't invited anyone (no invitations, save the dates, etc) then I think you're fine, as long as you're also both totally 100% ok with losing the money you've put down. You should be able to have the wedding you want.

If you've sent out any kind of invitation, then I agree with others who say you should move forward with your plans. Good luck!

Thankfully we haven't sent out the invitations yet! I think that we should really sit down and discuss what the best option is for us and accept that we may hurt a few feelings.

We've spent about $8k of our $25k budget, BUT the thing is...half of it isn't our money. My mother and grandmother have spent $4k on the wedding so far and I'll feel obligated to pay them back. That's the problem. It's one thing with money going down the drain and its another with it going down the drain and then you have to pay someone back on top of it. My family doesn't understand the HAPPINESS factor of a wedding, they just want a big production where I prance around and look pretty, so they always try to talk me out of backing out of the ceremony.

When we first got engaged I think the initial excitement and just wanting a beautiful ceremony is what got us to this point. Over these past two years of engagement I've gotten to know myself a lot more and I now realize that being phony just really isn't my thing and on top of that I have a minor case of social anxiety. LOL. So I know this ordeal sounds crazy to begin with, but we signed that contract out of a place of excitement.

I guess we really need to sit down and talk about what we really want and find some great alternative options...

Can you keep the same venue/vendors and just downsize the guest list to one that you're more comfortable with? Does you venue have a minimum head count or spend that needs to be met? Maybe you can work with what you have but make it more intimate and to your liking.

Did your mom and grandmother give input on your guest list as a result of their financial contributions? I can see how simply keeping your existing venue and vendors while just drastically scaling back your guest list to a much more intimate crowd would be tricky in that kind of situation. Did your mom and grandmother just write checks to you and FH or did they make arrangements to pay for specific things and therefore have contracts with specific vendors?

I agree with @WED1819, see if you can keep the same venue/vendors and see if they will work with you. You don't have to just eat that money, if they will work with you to make it smaller and more intimate, and more of what you really want.

Go ahead with the wedding. What's 6 hours out of your life? Cancelling now may cause some damaged feelings and bitterness that will last for a long time!

No, it's not too late at all. My husband and I got engaged in December of 2014 and scheduled our wedding for May 19,2017. We booked a venue, a DJ, a media booth, photographer and florist. However, we didn't really start planning until January 2016 and by August 2016, we realized that all of it was just too much. Our wedding became centered on the festivities rather than the nuptial part of the day. Suddenly, we were looking at spending $30,000 on a party, so we decided to start from scratch. We moved up our wedding from May 19, 2017 to December 23, 2016. We booked a different venue, had to let go of our DJ and media booth but kept our florist and photographer (thank goodness they were still available for our new date!). We went from having 120 guests to only 35 guests. We celebrated our wedding with a private dinner at a really fancy smancy restaurant after lol. We used the money that we saved to get our first place together. :-)