small wedding Vs big celebration in hometown...

[louisaho]

i am just wondering what do you feel about this? i am not feeling about good about this, now, we only have 35 guests, if we were to have the wedding in our hometown, our guest list would be at least 100 or more.
i am worried that the guest would think that this is not a serious wedding...
did any disney bride feel that afterward?
i am worried about everything now, as my wedding day is approaching,and it still seems nothing has been accomplished.

 

[megan926]

Not a serious wedding??? No way, I NEVER felt that way. I only had ten people at my wedding (including myself and my hubby), and I felt quite the opposite. I felt it was more romantic and more about love. I don't need 100 people watching me say my vows to make it "real" or "serious". As long as the people closest to me were there, that was all that mattered. I felt my wedding was more about the love that my DH and I share together rather than cake, and decorations. You shouldn't feel that your wedding isn't real. No matter where or how you say your vows, as long as the love is there...it is real and "serious"...

Megan

 

[jessiangel]

I agree with Megan. When I got married it was in my hometown and we had 300 people there. Many of the people we did not even know as they were business associates of our parents. We felt very uncomfortable not knowing these people since we really wanted a small intimate wedding with only people who knew us and could share in our happiness. That is why we are having a VR at Disney. We are only having close family and friends (about 15-20 people) and we are very excited about it. It feels more like a wedding to us than a vow renewal and our families can share in our happiness. And ultimately the wedding day is about the two of you and your happiness, so do not worry if others think it is not "real."

 

[hmgolden]

I agree with both the above posters. If we had gotten married at home, we would have had 300 plus people at our wedding. Something that DH and both did not want! Who wants to have people they have never met at the most important celebration of their life? We ended up with 76 guests at our wedding. And it was perfect. All of our important family and friends made the trip, and it really just felt like a big celebration. No one thought that the wedding wasn't real because it wasn't HUGE. The fact that there were only 76 people there including us, helped make everyone feel comfortable and let everyone have a good time.

No matter how many guests you end up with your wedding will be wonderful, magical and special. The guests that didn't make the trip will be regretting their decision as soon as they start to hear about your wedding. It's their loss. Not yours!

 

[louisaho]

i agree with all of you. but my parent, they don't feel that way, they think that we are not serious. it is like a secret hideaway wedding...
i was trying really hard to explain to them that i do not want to have people that i am not close to, to be in my wedding, as i would feel really uncomfortable. and then they said that they might not be close to me, but they are close to them...

 

[disrookie]

I understand how you feel, I am going through those thoughts now myself, but not for the same reasons as you. For me it is just knowing that if we were to have a big wedding here at home, more of the family would be able to attend, and more than likely get a lot more for the amount of money we are spending on a Disney wedding. But then, the thoughts do not really stick with me. Biggest reason being, this has always been my dream to get married in Disney World and here I am about to do it. I also know and so does my family and friends that will not be able to attend, that this is what I want and what will make me happy, they understand that. They just want me to be happy.

Yes there was times when my mother and I would have the conversation about how she always pictured me having a big wedding with everybody there, she tried to make me feel guilty about it at one point. Basically for parents it is about showing of their beautiful daughter and how well she has done in her life, parents are very proud of that. And for those parents that want those big weddings, we are taking the opportunity to show us off away from them.

But the end result is as harsh as this may sound, it is not their wedding, you are the one that is getting married and you should be able to have what you want, guilt free. This is your day, and you need to make sure that your parents do take this serious, and let them know how you feel about it. It seems as though they are trying to play a guilt trip on you and it is almost working. Don't let them do it as long as this is what you truly want in your heart. Explain to them, your wedding is serious, doesn't matter whether it is small or big, tell them this is what you truly want, and if they keep thinking that it is not serious, they are only hurting you (they need to hear you say that). Ask them to accept what you want for a wedding, cause you love them and that you want to be a Happy Bride on your wedding day, not a sad one.

Some of what I said, I know is harsh words, sometimes that is what it might take, for others it may not. If any of what I said makes sense, I hope it helps you. Remember, the closest to you will be the ones who will remember your wedding for many years to come, those 300 others would not even remember what they ate that day.

Darla

 

[lifield23]

I Agree with the above posters.

Me and my other half felt that we would rather spend alot of money having two weeks together with our close friend paul and treating my baby cousin to a holiday of a life time then having a load of people turn up that we hardly see and listening to people moan about things.

At least this way the day really is all about us.

saz xxxx

 

[ellieb]

OMG I could not agree more with the above posters. Your wedding should be when and where you and your DF wants it. It is the beginning of your life together and should be shared with people that are close and special to you.

I only had 27 people at my wedding and let me tell you that it was the BEST wedding day I could of ever asked for!!!

If I had my wedding here in MA I would of had well over 300 guest and as many of the posters stated half I would not of even known, not to mention that probably out of the 300 guests only 50 or so would of made it to the church anyway
The rest would of just went to the reception later on in the evening. Since this is how I felt my family excepted it however my mother being persistant as she is, did hold a surprise reception when we got back home It was incredible what she did!! and I ended up seeing those people I did not even know anyway and it felt just like a reception night!!! What was great about it was my mother set up a slide show so that all could view the pictures that was taken of us at our wedding.
Maybe you should set up something like this. You would have the day you have been dreaming of and your mom will be able to show off her beautiful daughters pictures of a MAGICAL WEDDING at a reception at home

 

[louisaho]

thank you so much for everyone's help. i am totally agree with you all.
yes, my plan right now is , if we have more money, we would also host a reception in our hometown, and invite all the people that i might not know.. but this will probably be another 10000 or so...
but if that is what they want, then hopefully at least they will help me to pay half of it. as i spent all of my money on disney wedding and honeymoon

 

[ahutton]

I was lucky, because my parents totally supported our WDW wedding plan. My inlaws did not feel the same.

Our original guest list for our wedding (when we thought it might be in town) was around 250 people, of which we were close to less than 50, including our family. The rest of that list was mostly people we had to invite, because they knew one person or another and we couldn't hurt someone's feelings. At least, that is what DH parents kept telling us. After all, in 1996 who heard of a couple running of to get married at WDW? The first official wedding hadn't even been televised yet, for the opening of the WP when we started planning. We were told if we did a WDW wedding that nobody would come - everything else they could think of to make us do what they wanted us to. We refused, and did exactly what we wanted, and loved every minute of our wedding and still love every minute of being married, almost 8 years later.

We did a very casual party at home for everyone (invited or not) on our original guest list, and we did it for very little money. We did some appetizer type things, mostly a nacho bar with all kinds of toppings that could also be made into tacos or taco salads. We had a couple kinds of drinks, ordered a rectangle cake from a grocery store and had it in a community room in our neighborhood association. Still not what his family would have had us do, but we enjoyed it, as did our friends and coworkers.

Funny thing is, for all the threats about nobody coming because it was at WDW, it really had little or nothing to do with it. One of DH family declined because he was named executor of an estate and couldn't get away. If that is the case he would have missed the home wedding too (they live in Oregon, we were in Arizona). Others couldn't get off work, couldn't travel, whatever, still, they wouldn't have come to Arizona, so why worry they didn't go to Florida?

My moral, at least for us, was we were glad we did what we wanted to. It was a wedding to celebrate us, and our future. Not anyone elses idea of what is proper, what duty or obligation you have, who is close to people you know and love, but not to you. Those people, even given the opportunity, didn't come anyway.

 

[MICKEY69]

I agree as well.......................

We had 30 people at our WDW wedding and this was or has been my lifetime dream. My DH just wanted me to be happy. At first I felt well maybe............and then said it's my day so we went along with it. My family was also suppotive but my mother in law was a little upset becasue we had friends instead of aunts and uncles etc.......

We came home and a month later we had a casual party for 170 people. I rented a huge hall and we had a buffet which the caterers supplied servers. i had a patio bar that I brought in with a bartender, DJ, picture table, and lotsa Mickey stuff.........Everyone was happy and I even wore my dress again.

I would not have had it any other way...........it didn't cost nearly as much as I thought it would but my dad surprioed us and paid for everything.

 

[ExCMbeau]

We had ours at the Celeration Hotel and loved it. We then honeymooned at the Grand Floridian. We had about 12 guests at our wedding and they all loved it!

The ones who didn't go... oh how they complained! Gripe.. Gripe.. Gripe..

We had a little something when we got back. We played our wedding video and people were actually crying and applauding.

People were commenting that this was the best wedding they ever attended No boring ceremony that nobody cares about. They got to eat while they watched the MOVIE on the big screen

It was like a dinner theater! All the complainers were saying how much they loved everything. It all worked out in the end and we gave the "special" people a copy of the DVD of our wedding.

Do what you want to make yourself happy. Your wedding is a great time to be selfish.