My fiancée wants to have a two weddings, an elopement and then a larger one. At the second she wants all the traditions of a normal wedding to achieve this she wants to omit from telling people that fact we have already been married.

Hey cross posting from relationship advice as I didn't get any results there.

My partner and I have since prior to our engagement planned a private almost secret elopement on the other side of the world from our friends and family. We have booked it in a picturesque town by a lake in the earliest time slot that was available. We have since extended the invite to our immediate family. I without consultation extended to friends and am in the process of uninviting them. Her sister suggested that the extended family be invited (I have no extended family) her's is large (at least from my perspective lol) and a handful are wealthy enough to come around the world for it but have no desire to confirm attendance until after large deposits will have to have been paid. In this category is also her mother who my partner wants to be there. Her mother is deflecting from providing her any assurance because she's a narcissistic. This is destabilising things and now it's basically just my immediate family and her sister coming which feels unfair.

The plans for the wedding have grown. Originally we were to get a photographer a suit and she would buy a designer dress that she could reuse throughout her life and we would have a reception in our home town to celebrate with everyone else. Now she has a wedding dress, we are planning a lunch/dinner for those that can come and costs are really starting to mount as our currency is quite weak. I have many time suggested uninviting the extended family and I think we'll go down that route.

Last night, she got the okay to have the 'wedding' at her mum's farm. This is where we have been hoping to hold our reception.

However as of yesterday, she now wants a wedding, walking down the aisle, ring exchange the whole works. I kinda want that for her. I want our friends and family to see her in her dress, coming to marry me. While it is pretty extreme in terms of scope creep. I do want that for her and I believe we could control costs in line with the reception. So we are at this point mostly in alignment.

So that everyone gets the full excitement of this event she want to hid the fact we were actually married over a month earlier. I said that would be bad as the reveal would be that all that 'full excitement' was a lie. She insists no one cares when the legal marriage is, and I do too, which is my point. Why not be honest that we had a separate private ceremony previously? She believes this may disway people from coming. I say let those fickle people not come. We be honest with everyone who does come.

We talked through several situations and she seems very firm that we hide our marriage off all social media until this second wedding. I want to declare our marriage. I want to be able to fully celebrate my legal marriage even if it's just signing some papers and getting some photos, post about our honeymoon. She thinks that will stop her celebration of the second wedding from feeling as good. I am very concerned about lying by omission here, to which she says she's tell people who ask (the truth) and the most important people already know the truth. Everyone else is in the dark until we obviously don't sign the paperwork and the ceremony just ends.

I feel this is built off insecurity on my partner's part and I have tried to reassure her that everyone who cares about her will be excited to come to a 'sequel' wedding as people on Google call them. And have asked explicitly who she believes will not come, yet have not received a clear answer.

How do I reassure my partner everyone will come and celebrate knowing the truth? Am I being unreasonable as to how a guest may feel about being kept in the dark? Do you know of other people who have done this? Can you still walk down the aisle of a sequel wedding?