Argh. In the beginning, the idea of a destination wedding was a total "ah-hah!" moment. FI and I could pay for our way with our meager salaries, opt for the free resort wedding, and have our honeymoon all rolled into one. At first, our nearest and dearest were totally on board. The reason I decided to start booking was because of the initial positive response I got from everyone. Now, a few months later, I've already got people backing out.. people that were originally "I wouldn't miss it!" The wedding is frickin 12 months away, and people are going to automatically say no because they can't afford it.. I privately consulted the most important people to me prior to announcing my DW, and after everyone confirmed "yes! awesome!" I announced it...... and now all those people are backing out. And here's the kicker: they're backing out, then making ME feel bad about having as DW... "well, you should have known people weren't going to be able to come. Why don't you just honeymoon there?" Because FI and I have about 3k to spend and we would like to have a nice wedding AND honeymoon. We have a 6 year-old daughter together and we just never get any time to ourselves, we've never been on vacation alone together and we've been together for 8 years! I don't understand how some of you people have 50-100 people following you around the world, my own sister won't even try to save any money to come... and I gave her 14 months notice, I mean really! So I've been playing with the idea of cancelling the DW plans and planning a local wedding, but the idea of doing that literally makes me want to cry. I don't want to talk about chair covers and sashes and DIY candles and place cards and all the frickin wedding porn. Especially on a meager budget, that just takes all the fun out of planning when it's just stressful. I don't want to plan it at all. I have a Dominican lady doing all that for me, and I'd like to keep it that way. But I don't want to get married without my friends and some family there either. I wish I was rich