Couple Refuses to Have Wedding Even Though Groom's Mom Offered to Pay for It: 'Better for Us to Elope'

"My mom was upset when we announced we had gotten married. Then she offered to pay for us to have a real wedding," the groom wrote on Reddit

A mom is upset after her son refused her "kind offer" to pay for "a real wedding" after he and his wife chose to elope.

In a recent post on Reddit's "Am I the A------? [AITA]" forum, a 27-year-old man explained that he and his 25-year-old wife recently secretly eloped after being engaged for seven months. The couple had "talked a lot" about what they wanted and ultimately decided to elope for their "own reasons" — which were primarily about avoiding "family conflict" on both sides.

However, when the couple announced that they had gotten married, the groom's mother didn't take the news well as she had hoped to witness the occasion. "She asked about a wedding and I told her we felt it was better for us to elope," the man wrote. "I said it saved us a lot of money and time. She told me she always wanted to see me get married."

Continuing to press the issue, the groom's mother then offered to pay for the couple to have "a real wedding."

Related: Bride Says Uncle ‘Ruined’ Wedding After He Offered to Contribute $15K, but She Was Expecting $50K

"I told her it was a kind offer but not needed," the man recalled. "She told me it would mean so much to everyone and she could see me get married and we'd all be together as a family to celebrate and it's what she/they wanted the most."

The groom once again politely declined his mother's offer. "My mom told me I should at least consider it and ask my wife," he wrote. "She told me we denied ourselves a wedding when we got married but there's no reason to when all expenses would be paid."

The man — who titled his post "AITA for refusing a wedding even when my mom offered to pay?" — invited fellow Redditors to share their opinions on the tricky situation. The general consensus was that the man was not in the wrong and should stand his ground against his mother.

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"NTA. YOUR wedding, YOUR choice. Eloping is fine," one person wrote, while another added: "You had the wedding you wanted. It's understandable that family may be a bit upset at not seeing this, but it's not about them."

Another person suggested that the man could be even firmer with his mother as she doesn't appear to be accepting no for an answer.

"You may need to be a little bolder and clearer," they wrote. "Hey, mum, thank you for the kind offer. We really appreciate your generosity, but we are pleased with how we did things, we kept things small and less complicated. There is no need to ‘do over’ what were meaningful vows, even if we didn’t mark the day as you might have hoped."

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The commenter also threw out the idea of the groom inviting his mother to instead pay for and host a dinner with extended family to celebrate his wedding.

Another Redditor pointed out that the mother's reaction to the elopement reaffirms the couple's very reason for not wanting to have a traditional wedding.

"You and your wife did the smart thing by eloping — who needs a wedding when you can skip the family drama?" they wrote. "It’s like saying no thanks to a buffet of conflict. Your mom's all about throwing a big party, but you’ve got valid reasons for wanting to keep things low-key."

"Definitely NTA," they added. "You picked the path of least resistance and saved yourself a bunch of stress."

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