I totally hear your pain!
I was 8 months pregnant when we got married at the courthouse. When we found out I was pregnant, we started talking about having a wedding. Here at home, I looked at all kinds of places. Most of them wanted you to use their catering and floral people, which was expensive or I just didn't care for what they were offering. Then they charged it seemed outrageous prices. Or you had to have or meet a minimum of 50 people or more etc. And for a group under 15 or 10, to me was just costly and out of our budget. And seriously, I just didn't have the time or patience with calling all these places and people and getting information and stuff. It was just a pain to me.
We ended up going to the courthouse due to me being laid off from my job as well. So a wedding was put off. And the courthouse was just eh to me. I didn't wear a gown (because I hated the fact of seeing myself with a huge baby bump in a wedding gown), no flowers, no one was there but us and the guy who performed our wedding. I didn't even get any photos. It wasn't special to me. It wasn't curtailed to us at all. We went to a very nice restaurant afterwards and had a nice relaxing lunch. Do I regret the courthouse, No. I married the love of my life and that is all that mattered. After 2 years now, and the baby a bit older, and we are now a bit more financially stable, we are having our wedding.
We are having an Escape Wedding at Disney World next year on our anniversary. Yes, it does seem silly to have a wedding afterwards, but we are using this as our vow renewal/wedding. We both wanted our wedding (ok, let's be real here, my husband is typical man, he could care less so long as I'm happy. But he gets the idea of me wanting the dress and the all the details). But this is also going to be our family vacation as well.
I chose Disney because they make the planning so freaking easy. I hear people complain about how expensive it is, but when you seriously break down all the costs of what an at home wedding costs, you are either paying the same amount or more. (At least that was the case for us). Or if you end up choosing a place and decide to cut costs by doing things yourself, brides are not thinking about the stress factor either. I didn't want to DIY my entire renewal/wedding. I have enough of my time with the toddler. He needs my attention more then wedding planning. To me, Disney just made the decision so easy, especially since we can curtail this into a family vacation with my husbands crazy work schedule.
Doing Disney also helped me keep my head count down. I have a very large family, and I knew we could not afford a Wishes wedding. So by doing Disney, being it's a destination wedding, sometimes turns people off.
Look at Disney's wedding website. Look at the different plans they offer. Read thru the Wedding boards and the planning boards. You will get so much feedback just reading. If you decide you really want to do Disney, order
Carrie's book Passporters Guide to Disney Weddings. 100% worth it. And listen to her wedding podcast too. This also helped me out tremendously on my Disney Wedding decision. I initially started with Memories, and finally we decided on the Escape, just because my husband didn't want me to be planning all this extra stuff on my own. He wanted me to relax and just let Disney do what they do best.
Good Luck and I hope you are able to have what you both want. And don't stress!
