PS - We had the wedding that WE wanted, but with major concessions to keep our parents happy. We decided that $1000-2000 wasn't worth burning bridges or making our parents forever angsty. Think long-term. Think about your relationship with your families. Which makes more sense for you guys? It would drive me nuts to be nagged at, at every family gathering...
You know, it's easy to say, "Screw everyone else -- do what you please", but you're right to say that these decisions do have consequences. Weddings
do matter to the rest of the family too. You should walk a fine line between your expectations and your family's expectations.
I have a good friend who was
dead set on a small wedding the summer after her high school graduation. Her father wanted her to wait until she'd finished two years of college and be a little older (not unreasonable on his part -- she was a very immature, spoiled 18-year old). She ended up eloping only two weeks after high school graduation (classic elopement, left a note for her father while he was away at work, didn't even tell him where she was going), so she got exactly what she wanted; however, she regretted this decision later. It caused hard feelings between her and her dad: they didn't speak for something like three years. Later, she was VERY jealous of the modest weddings her friends (me included) had later, though she practiced some revisionist history and claimed that her elopement had nothing to do with timeline differences; rather, she claimed it was just too much to plan without her mother's help. Today she's ravenous for her own daugther to get married, and I know she's going to thrust the wedding she never had upon her daughter.
Your new spouse is
mainly marrying you, but he or she is also marrying into a family. Do take your family's desires into consideration before you decide to run away or go to the JP. If your family would feel miffed by a complete lack of ceremony, a small wedding really isn't all that expensive or difficult.
Don't be so stiffnecked about having things exactly your way as to create hard feelings in your family.