hi my fiancé and i have been engaged since july 23’ i found out i was pregnant three weeks later and we got some planning done while i was pregnant but my mil insists on us having a big wedding. since my son was born 7 months ago we’ve planned more of the details but only have a couple of vendors set in stone because money has been an issue. our date is in june of 2025. my side is 40 people and his is 70 people. we are getting $7k combined from my parents and his and don’t have a savings of our own put aside other than our emergency savings due to getting pregnant and buying a home which was more important to us than our wedding obv. our total of all the vendors and everything is coming out to just over $10k and we cannot afford the difference in the time we have (we already changed the date once).
should we hustle to make it work to have a beautiful celebration with all of our loved ones or disappoint his family by having a micro wedding?
(neither of us are fussy abt the size of our wedding, although it would be fun to do something bigger) he’s letting me make the decision but i feel lost.
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One thing you might consider is having a micro wedding and a big reception afterwards not sure if that helps the cost for you but it’s what we are considering

In the grand scheme of things, no one’s opinion matters about your wedding day but yours. It’s about you and him, not them 💜
We eloped, paid $53 and found a photographer on fb for a beautiful shoot in the countryside. We paid for everything ourselves, no debt, no funding a party for everyone else, got back in the car and went straight on road tripping for our honeymoon.
If it’s so important to his family you can have a party and dress up again for them all.

Had a micro wedding, 42 guests total. Had a lot of family pitch in with an aspect of the wedding instead of a wedding gift or a honeymoon fund. My in-laws offered their beautiful back yard, my mother bought the dress, a cousin took half the price of all of our flowers, a family friend did my hair and makeup, my uncle and aunt did all the photography, and my husbands godmother provided all of the food. After a bunch of other help, and lots of DIY, I think we only paid about $4000 out of pocket for the whole thing.

You can always cut costs. Buy sams club cake, wedding flowers packages, food trays, drinks, etc. if you look online they have everything! :) we did! I also used dollar tree a lot. We had a guest list of 70 and had our wedding and reception in a park. Everything total including my dress and alterations was under $5k. You don’t have to do all of the fancy things with the fancy vendors. We had 0 vendors. We just rented the small park and its building out.

You could invite only the people who mean the most to you and live stream for everyone else?

We got married in the courthouse which was perfectly fine with us

Accidentally chose make it work it’s your day and I would keep saying that it’s your wedding

It’s YOUR wedding and YOUR money. Your MIL doesn’t get to insist. The economy isn’t what they grew up with - spending money like this can destroy your family.