I don't know if I want a reception and it's freaking me out (Rant/Question)

This is gonna be a long one(ish) so TL;DR at the bottom.

​

Hey everyone, so I've fallen into a bit of a rut lately with the wedding planning. The only thing we have confirmed is our ceremony venue and date, which is in February 2020 and on the other side of the country (WA) from where we are now (TX). When we decided on this venue, we knew only a small portion of our family and friends would be able to make it and were ok with that because we planned on having a traditional reception in Texas. We were going to have it a few weeks after the ceremony so we could have time to recover. Him and I started interviewing DJ's, looking at venues and the works so we could have a really fun reception (not locking anything in yet though). Pretty normal, right?

​

Well, about a month ago I more or less got struck with a realization, which was that I didn't think I wanted to have a huge party. Not only because of the financial burden, but also because I generally dislike being the center of attention and having an entire party dedicated to me (and my FH, granted) sounds stressful and unneeded. A big part of that was that I started browsing this sub, and seeing some of ya'lls small, non-traditional weddings made me realize it's ok to not want to be completely traditional. When we took engagement photos, our photographer set some up with the prompt "Lean on him, like he's your support!" which kinda flipped a switch. We're not like that, at all, (hell if anything I'm more dominant than he is) and I started getting paranoid that if I go through with having a big reception people are going to think of me as a traditional selfish bridezilla who just wants a perfect wedding and hasn't considered the marriage aspect at all.

​

The latter part of that paranoia comes from my age. I'm fairly young, and 5 years younger than my FH at that. I've been getting some crap from my extended family about it and I know some of them think I'm just doing this for attention. I know I shouldn't care what others think, but it's hard when people assume you're lying about your love. I was content with dropping the reception and having a small get-together once we got back, but now I'm questioning that decision because I don't know what I really want. I'm going to miss things like the first dance, cake cutting, father-daughter dance and stuff like that makes me kinda sad. I guess I'm asking, do you think it's worth it? Is there a good medium? I'm so worried about regretting how my wedding played out because I was pressured into doing something or caring too much about other people.

​

TL;DR, crazy OP can't make up her mind and want's to know if having a huge reception is worth the hassle.

​