Not knowing your family, I'm gonna hafta go down the unpopular road and suggest you REALLY think it through.

My husband and I eloped in August last year. It was a planned eloping - only our close family were there. It took a few months for my parents to get used to the idea, and then they were right behind it. My mum even hired a limo as a surprise for me, she said even if I wasn't getting married in a Kingdom Hall, didn't mean I couldn't have a limo! But DH's parents weren't too thrilled, him being the only son and the only one able to marry in the church.

But the one thing that really surprised me was the amount of our supposed friends that didn't support us. To this day we still don't talk to some of them, because they view our marriage as 'less' than theirs somehow. Some felt that we had deliberately excluded them. I felt really hurt not long ago when I showed someone our wedding pics - all the guests took pics on their digital cameras and then gave us copies - and the person said 'Wow! These photos almost look like you two had a REAL wedding!'

So, in terms of the planning I would REALLY recommend eloping - the whole thing cost us less than $800, and we really enjoyed ourselves. However, you can never tell how your friends are going to react until after, when it's too late. The surprise wedding/bbq is a great idea, because then your friends and relatives are included, but its not a huge show!

Hope this helps, and CONGRATULATIONS!