I’m Having A Destination Wedding Just So We Don’t Have To Invite Anyone

I always dreamed of having a big wedding with hundreds of guests and an amazing reception, but when my fiancé and I started planning our big day, we realized that the pressure to please everyone else was making us miserable. So we decided to ditch the idea of a big wedding and fly somewhere far away where no one could reach us. Here’s why:

1. It’s actually a lot cheaper than having a wedding at home. The average cost of a wedding in America in 2016 was over $35,000. Between our plane tickets, accommodation, and nice restaurants, my fiancé and I won’t be spending even half that. We’ve chosen one of the most beautiful places in the world to get married, and we’re actually saving money.
2. We love our friends and family, but we want our wedding to be about us. I’ve been to enough weddings at this point to know the dangers of giving away your big day to the people in your life who might mistakenly think it’s about them. There will always be possessive mothers-in-law, jealous bridesmaids, and rocky sibling relationships, and it’s easy to let the loudest voices in your life take over. My fiancé and I decided we’d rather leave everyone at home than miss the opportunity to celebrate our wedding the way we want to.
3. We don’t want to be stressed about making everyone happy. You’d think that on your wedding day, everyone would be interested in making you and your soon-to-be spouse happy above all else. But weddings are a divisive issue for a lot of people, and no matter how we planned it, we just couldn’t seem to make everyone happy with our arrangements. In the end, we decided our happiness was all that mattered.
4. Planning a massive wedding is no way to start a happy marriage. Planning a wedding is exhausting, and if you don’t have the means to hire a wedding planner, you’re totally on your own. My fiancé and I realized early on that the amount of time and energy we were putting into the preliminary stages of planning our wedding was causing serious strain on our relationship. It was becoming more and more joyless by the day, and in the end, it just wasn’t worth it.
5. I don’t want to be the bride from hell. I’ve seen so many wonderful, calm, gentle people turn into monsters by their wedding day. There’s something about the pressure and the expectations that seems to crush people and make them feel like they have something to prove. I didn’t want to see myself get possessed by some bridal personality transplant and become nasty and unhappy. That’s the opposite of how you should feel for your wedding.
6. We don’t need all the wedding gifts. Yes, it’s a great head start to have your family and friends pitch in to buy all the expensive kitchen gadgets and living room accessories you’ve always wanted, buy my fiancé and I have been living together for two years and already have enough stuff between us to last a lifetime. We’re content to keep everything we have and don’t want anything more. We’d rather build memories than furniture.
7. It’s impossible to avoid awkward family moments at big weddings. There is no such thing as a family that gets along. There is always a black sheep or a sibling rivalry or divorced parents to make a reunion a nightmare. While the idea of having everyone you love in the same place to celebrate your love for your new spouse is beautiful, it rarely works in practice, and often leads to an unnecessary headache.
8. We want to set a precedent for putting our relationship first. My fiancé and I don’t want to step into our new life together by compromising our wishes for the sake of making other people happy. We want to start putting our marriage first now so that we can continue doing so for the rest of our lives. As long as our relationship is strong, we can get through anything.
9. There’s no way to get around to everyone at a big wedding. The more guests you invite to your wedding, the more hopeless it is to have meaningful conversations with any of them. What’s the point of inviting anyone when the best you’ll be able to do is wave and give a brief greeting? You may as well just invite your nearest and dearest to celebrate after the actual wedding when you can really spend quality time with them.
10. We want to leave all our worries behind us on our special day and just have each other. It’s hard to really let go and enjoy your wedding when you’re worried about the catering or your guests’ accommodation or the weather. You don’t want to spend months planning your wedding only to have it ruined by one weak link in the chain. My fiancé and I are liberating ourselves from these burdens by spending our wedding together, without having to make the day about anyone else.