Back in love with Lido

I had a breakdown and started emailing every caterer I could find, determined that I could find one that would be inexpensive.  Well, I did.  Quality Catering has a pretty impressive menu at very low prices.  So I showed this to my fiance to see what he thought about having our wedding at Botanical Gardens instead of at a hotel or restaurant, since getting the food catered by this company meant that we could afford to have full dinner for 200 people instead of just cocktails for most and then dinner only for family and the wedding party.  He freaked out!  Basically, he thought that the food must be awful since the prices are good and I wasn't considering a slew of other charges we'd incur (which I was) and that I have no concept of how much effort would go into having a catered dinner instead of a hotel reception and that everything would look cheap and tacky.  When I showed him that it would definitely be less expensive and that we, along with our wedding party, would certainly be able to set everything up, he told me he didn't want to have dinner for 200 people because "it wouldn't be like a wedding".  Seriously?  Anyway, whatever.  It's his wedding too and if he doesn't want to have dinner for 200 - even if it would save money in the end - fine.  The only problem is that I am going to be the one who has the disappointed friends and family who feel left out of my big day.

I had already set up a site visit with Lido, which was my original choice anyway.  I went this afternoon to have a look around and fell in love with it all over again.  It's so pretty down there right next to the beach and I know the food is good in the restaurant and the service is decent.  The problem is that I think it will be over my budget.  The sales rep from Lido is meant to send me an email with options so I can have a look through and make a decision.  Based on the prices I already know from Lido, however, it's looking like this will put me at around $14K for the ceremony, cocktail reception with canapes, and dinner for 50 people.

Which brings me to the argument we had about my parents not paying for my wedding.  They have strict religious beliefs, which cause them to not be in favor of my marrying someone outside of my religion period.  For that reason, they are not paying for my wedding, which I expected.  My fiance, however, is getting very upset about this because he's taking it as a personal affront.  If I am going to cater to 200 people, I'm going to need some help from my parents.  And since many of those 200 are my mum's friends and family, I'm going to use that as my case.