Vent: just don't care anymore...

Take a break from anything wedding related for a few weeks. The stress gets to everyone eventually. Put your mental health first!

Would eloping be better?

Is this about the wedding or getting married? You already have been engaged for a while and you want to postpone for 2 more years?

Dump the wedding and do what you want, but there is no way I could contemplate pushing my wedding back by 2 years unless having doubts about FH.

It's normal. I had the same feeling a few days ago however, I listened to our song and didn't do anything for a whole day or so and now I'm back at it.

I feel like every bride has this feeling at least once. For me there was drama that had gotten so out of hand I told FH I wanted to go to JOP but he told me he wanted to go through with the wedding and told me to just take a step back. That's what you need to do, take a break from the wedding.

@AndyJ that thought just came to me a couple days ago. I guess I don't know the rights or wrongs when it comes to eloping. The 2 main things I have done is I have my dress, and we've asked all of our wedding party. When I mentioned it to my mom she said that when eloping, most people don't wear an actual wedding dress and don't have a BP... is that true?

You can wear your dress and have your bridal party if you elope! Just make sure if you go this route, that wherever you decide to get married (court house or whatever) has room and allows the bridal party. I wouldn't skimp on the photographer either for an elopement - you'll still want great photos of you and FH to remember the day by. In the end, you should have the day YOU and FH want, not what everyone else is pushing you to do. Good luck figuring it all out.

Just elope if that's what you want.

@WED18 oops, I forgot to mention the photographer! We do have that booked as well. Definitely want pictures no matter how we do it

If you really want to elope, those are NOT good reasons to not do it! I don't think there are any rules for eloping. I think it would be fine to still have a bridal party if you want one (they can stand up at the "altar" or whatever is there with you). But if you feel weird about it maybe just ask them to be guests? A lot of elopements have a very small amount of guests. Or if you decide no guests, you can gently let them know that you and your FH have been thinking and have decided that eloping is better suited for you. They really should not be offended by this (hopefully no bridesmaid dresses/suits have been purchased?)

Yes. I absolutely felt this way. I LOVE planning things, it's what I do, but I got to the point with my wedding planning where everything just made me cringe/feel really anxious. Our original wedding plans just were not what we wanted, and were the result of twisting our way around family drama, and other people's expectations. I no longer feel this about wedding planning, because FH and I took a step back and prioritized. We decided we didn't want to deal with the drama, so we reduced our guest list from 150 to 15, yes, 15, and changed the wedding to a Hawaiian destination wedding. We're spending half the cost of our original wedding, we've significantly reduced the drama, and our anxieties. This may not be your solution, but I wanted to let you know that you're not alone, and that you and your FH should sit down and prioritize and see what it will take to reduce your lethargy/anxiety. You don't have to feel over the moon about planning your wedding, because that's just not how some people roll, but you shouldn't feel crummy about it either. Best of luck to you

Typically when people elope it's just the couple and maybe witnesses, so they don't typically have a BP. Just because you asked people to be in the BP doesn't mean you have to go through with the wedding. Take a month or two off from planning if it's stressing you out. If some things don't get done, who cares. The important thing is you're getting married. There are rights and wrongs in terms of etiquette, but ultimately it's your wedding. And if you elope, there are no guests to host so etiquette is not really an issue (just don't ask people to give you money and gifts, and you're good).

If you're worried about the marriage, then you have bigger fish to fry and I can't offer advice there. But if you want to marry your FH, I would NOT push back the wedding. The things that are stressing you out aren't going to go away just because you push the wedding back.

It sounds like your best bet would be to hire a wedding planner. A wedding planner can help keep you on track, figure out what you want and how to make it happen, and hopefully offer advice about dealing with family drama etc. based on what they've seen before.

You have 10 months to go.

I would just take a break for a couple of months.

Take like a month off of anything wedding related, then come back and reevaluate

This was me when I was dealing with having a normal sized wedding that I didn't want to have nor pay for. FH's family was like 70 guests in and of themselves. Pretty much the entire experience could be summed up by, like you said: "family drama, expenses, other people's expectations"

So, we cancelled the bigger wedding. It was a huge etiquette breach. FMIL had already reached out to people for their addresses (she did this without really checking with us), and I had already spoken to my two best friends as if they were going to be bridesmaids.

But I was giving less than 0 fucks about the wedding and wanted to call it off by that point due to all the stress and drama. FH and I sat down, talked about what we wanted in our ideal worlds (turned out to be immediate family only), and then we looked at each other and had a moment of "why the hell not then?" And that's what we went with. The big wedding turned into a 11 person wedding, and I've been constantly happy and excited about planning since.

I explained to my best friends that it wasn't them but rather that the stress was just killing me and we couldn't invite them without inviting all of the extended family. Yes, I disinvited my best girlfriends to make this tiny wedding happen. To make it up to them, I purchased them a vacation -

plane tickets and the hotel room for a girls weekend getaway, just the three of us. They totally understood and were really excited about spending quality time with me and with each other. They were both from OOT (different states, although years ago we all lived on the same block) and would have had to fly for my wedding and share me with 100 other people.

FH's family (who we thought would all be pissed and bitchy about it) actually didn't care at all so long as we were having immediate family only as opposed to inviting the cousins we were close with and not the distant ones etc. It wasn't that they all really wanted to come, but like many big families, they REALLY care about everyone being treated the same way, no favoritism. One cousin actually told me she was grateful not to have to travel from the other side of the country.

Once in awhile we get some push back from FMIL who is upset that she won't get to celebrate with her side of the family. She'll say things like how she's been waiting her whole life for this, how it's her wedding too, but FH's got 4 other siblings, she'll live.

To be honest, I'm really happy with how things are now. It doesn't matter if everyone thinks its rude or whatever. I'm happy, FH's happy, we're excited about our wedding in a way that we weren't before. And we're staying true to our extremely fiscally conservative values by spending less than $6000 for the whole thing. That was a big thing for us too. It's not that we couldn't afford it, but we're both very frugal and it just made us sick to our stomach to spend what was about $20,000-$25,000 for one day. It wasn't what we wanted, and it killed us to spend an extra $15-20K just to meet other people's expectations

I feel that way too on and off. You arent alonem but it sounds like postponing it would make things worse. Would eloping be a good idea?

You don't have to have a big fancy event.

Get a cute dress, go to the courthouse, and take a handful of your nearest and dearest to a nice dinner at a fancy restaurant.

If you're feeling so overwhelmed by the party, then don't do it. No reason to have stress about it.

ETA: actually read the comments. I mean, you can have a BP if you want, but there won't be an aisle likely. If you didn't have them buy dresses yet, just be honest with them. If they love you, they should understand.

I felt like this for a little while when we were about a year to ten months out (and frankly every time my sister causes drama). I didn't stress about it. You don't plan a wedding every single day. Meanwhile you have to live your life. So I did. I just let the feeling happen and turned my attention to other things. Now I'm four months out and the excitement has been coming back full force. I hope that's what will happen with you but as PP have said, if the problem is that you're being dragged into doing things for others rather than yourself, stop and reevaluate the wedding and see if there are ways to change things back to where you're happy with them.

I've had moments like that, it feels like I've had more moments like that closer it gets to the wedding. But as pp stated, step back, take a break! You have about ten-ish months left. You have plenty of time Take a month off from planning if you need too. It honestly really helps! Good Luck!!

Take a break!!! Planning a wedding is A LOT of work. You are burnt out. It'll be okay.