I regret having a big wedding. If I could go back in time, I would elope instead.

• I never dreamt of having a wedding and hated being the center of attention.
• As I started planning my wedding, it felt like the day was for everyone else but me.

I was not a little girl who dreamed of her future wedding or played pretend as a bride with a lace curtain as a veil. By the time I became an adult, I was more interested in being married than in the wedding part.

I hated being the center of attention, so the idea of an event where I would supposedly be just that was daunting. But when I began to plan my wedding, it quickly began to feel like the wedding day would be centering just about everyone else.

I wanted to keep both our families happy

As a people-pleaser, I spent the months leading up to the wedding trying to keep both our families happy.

It began with choosing the wedding date. Although I would have preferred a spring wedding with warmer weather, my sister-in-law was in the military and wasn't sure she would be able to get leave then. I wanted my husband to have his sister at the wedding, so we chose a date in December when she already had scheduled leave.

I would have also preferred having no wedding party, but we worried about offending friends and family members if we didn't. I still managed to offend two friends that I didn't ask. My choice for my matron of honor definitely turned out to be a mistake. Although this friend had always been a bit controlling, it got much worse during the wedding planning process.

The ceremony and reception location was partially a budgetary choice but also was dictated by the short time frame leading up to the wedding, the time of year, and, well, my in-laws. Although both of our families were religious, it was a distinct possibility that my in-laws would be vocally upset if the wedding weren't held at a church. So we booked the ceremony and reception at my parents' church, which had the added bonus of making my parents happy, too.

Since the wedding was held at a church, there was no alcohol and no dancing beyond the father/daughter and first dance. Having dancing or alcohol at the wedding would have enraged my father-in-law, but honestly, we weren't interested in paying hundreds for our guests to drink either. While those things made our families happy, there were mutterings from friends about the fact there was no dancing, the lack of alcohol, and our choice only to serve dessert. It was clear that some of them thought that the wedding was either boring or tacky.

I wished we had just eloped

Before the wedding day even arrived, I was beginning to regret having one. It was impossible to keep everyone happy. Even the elements that I liked and wanted to be part of our day quickly soured under criticism from others. It felt like the day that was supposed to be about celebrating us wasn't about us at all.

Looking back, if we could do it all over, we would just elope instead. Then, the day we were married would have been free of anyone else's opinions and preferences.

Although we can't turn back time, we have been intentional about keeping other people out of our marriage and its celebrations since.