Eloping is a wonderful option

I say this with all the love in my heart for my sister-in-law and her fiance. She asked us to be in her wedding, so we could walk down the aisle together like we would have if we'd gone with the traditional fiesta instead of the courthouse jaunt we took on a Friday afternoon, as the fans for a certain major football rivalry rolled into town. It's become a bit challenging for me to make things work and scheduling has become an issue for me personally. The bachelorette weekend is next weekend and I am not sure that I can make the trip, or the best way to get there and back. I could take the mom-bus but it's not exactly fuel efficient. I considered flying but it's cheaper to drive the mom-bus. The cheapest flight is still 2-3 times more expensive than dragging the entire household in the mom-bus. Then there's the issue of 3 tanks of gas. One to get there, one to return, and one to replenish so I can get to work the next week. $3x24= $72/tank of gas. Times 3=$216. I can take a train for half that. The issue then becomes someone picking me up and dropping me off at both ends of the trip. Devildog doesn't want me taking the train because the stations are in crummy neighborhoods. But, if I took the train, I could knit on this sweater that I cast on back in May of last year. And it would be less expensive than driving the mom-bus. And I wouldn't have to uninstall and reinstall the car seat.
I realize this may seem minor to many but for me, the part time employed wife of an unemployed student with four kids - this is a big deal. I would like to get to know these other ladies a bit. I just feel like all my options are less than ideal. It's complicated by my workload that has a specific window to be completed. Reset season is often a bane to my sanity. Even still I love my job. I don't envy my boss.

All of THIS stuff further cements my gratitude that we just eloped and skipped the hassle, not to mention the familial drama. And I think we are better for the simplicity of it. I think having an audience would have detracted from the us of it. Our simple start is all we needed and anything grander would have been wasteful and problematic.