HELP ME WITH MY WEDDING!!!?

I really want to have an informal ceremony in Chicago on the beach somewhere. Me and all my family live about 4 hours away. I wanted to only invite my closest friends and parents and siblings to keep the cost down and just a have small picnic type get together somewhere at a restaurant or something. Dad thinks aunts uncles and cousins will be offended if they are not invited, but the more people i invite the more its going to cost. If I did it this way I would have a celebration at home a week or two later so that everyone could be a part of it. WHAT DO I DO...i really dont want to alienate the rest of the family, but i would much rather a have a small intimate wedding somewhere fabulous than a huge wedding in my hometown with a buch of people jsut vcoming for free food and beer. Please help me!!!!!HELP ME WITH MY WEDDING!!!?
You write: Dad thinks aunts uncles and cousins will be offended if they are not invited, but the more people i invite the more its going to cost.



Then Dad should be paying for his guests . . . if he wants and insists all these people be invited.



If you and groom are paying, then you two make all decisions . . . and have the intimate wedding you desire.



I hope that my advice simplifies things for you. You pay, you do it your way.
it's YOUR wedding, YOUR day. who cares what your dad thinks, if he complains about the family being insulted, tell him that if he's willing to pay for it, then that's fine with you but with things the way they are now, this is how it's going to be.

people won't be insulted if you throw a big party afterwards, the whole point of a wedding is to celebrate two people starting their life together. and you are including them in that, just later on. if you really want a big wedding you can renew your vows in twenty years or something.

what's important is that you do it the way you want to do it. and don't feel pressured into making it into something it's not. it's your wedding and no one else's opinion should matter but yours and your husband-to-be's.

congratulations, and good luck with the wedding plans.HELP ME WITH MY WEDDING!!!?
Maybe just choose the cousins and aunts etc that are closest to you. Then just be frank with the others, we don't have much of a budget so we are just keeping it very small and low key is all that needs to be said.
If it's very important to your DAD that aunts and uncles can come, maybe you should suggest he help pay for their part. but I don't see anything wrong with having a separate party when you get back home for the extended family. just make sure you send out the invites for that, before you have the first party, so they don't hear about it and think they weren't included.
You can't please everybody.
Whatever you decided, don't just pick and choose extended family. Draw very thick, dark lines about who can come and who can't. I think you dad is over estimating your significance in the lives of your uncles, aunts and cousins.



You can spit the difference by having a casual family party at some point after you small intimate wedding and inviting everyone to that.