The whole idea of single sided proposals feels weird as hell and kinda emotionally exploitive to me.

In my experience, they're very rarely one-sided. The actual "popping the question" is a formality. The real proposal is when one or both partners decide to have the "Where is this relationship going?" conversation.

Maybe my partner and I are just freaks, but we were together for like 9 years before deciding it was a good time to just sign the papers so we hopped over to the clerks office

I mean, nine years is a long time. Once you've been co-mingling assets for two or three years, marriage is mostly about consolidation of paperwork. Even then, throwing a big party to make it official is fun. I won't argue that the money we threw at a wedding could have been better spent, but I don't regret inviting a bunch of friends and family to a big fancy party with some light religious overtones.

her family got straight up enraged at the way we did it

There's a lot of emotion bound up in weddings, and people see it as a kind of cultural milestone. When they don't get to participate in it - particularly parents and siblings - they're going to feel hurt and left-out. If my sister ran off to Vegas with her boyfriend and didn't say anything until the deed was done, I'd feel genuinely hurt that I didn't get so much as an invite.

But that's just family, for you.