Weddingbee boards

I recently got into a conversation with my family. My fiancee and I are planning for a destination wedding with a very limited guests, about 50 or less; and mainly just close friends and family. However, things have slightly change and my mom suggested us to sign the marriage license and not doing reception because of personal issue.

Since this will be our one and only time to get married, I am debating with my self whether or not to have the celebration. I agree with my mom but yet afraid that I will regret it. So, I was thinking of signing the marriage license in a small court house (not a city hall). That way I don't need to dress up and my family don't need to attend (they live in different states) and i feel bad having them coming just for this.

I also will have a celebration (formerly destination wedding) with close friends only, and call it our honeymoon, so people that we don't want to invite don't have to feel bad about it. We want to have it overseas because we have friends from several countries that plan to attend the celebration.

Has anyone ever experienced such a complicated scenario like that? Where do you take a family picture? When do you dress up in your wedding gown?