So here's the deal. It is marriage 2 for me and 3 for him. We are long distance. To do a wedding it would be a destination wedding regardless of where we chose. We have friends and family all over the world and even our parents are in vastly different locations (over 1100 miles apart). So we decided to do a planned elopement with no one in attendance. His parents can't travel due to age (legit his dad gets confused when he is not at home) so we decided it would be just us.
So our friends and family are not pleased with this but were happy with the idea of local (one near me and one near him) celebrations after our elopement. The one near me will be a congratulations "reception" and a goodbye party (for me), and the one near him will be a congratulations "reception" and welcome home party (for me).
I was super fine with this until my bestie said it was still a wedding reception and that folks would still want to give gifts and that I needed to register. Cont'd in comments...
