Wilayah in Nikah

Asalamualaikum!

I am a 25-year-old male and am in a relationship with a woman of the same age. We have been in a long-distance relationship for over 4 years now and have met physically only a few times and travelled together once for about a week. We are moderately practicing Muslims but want to work towards strengthening our Imaan and save ourselves from committing any sins. After more than 4 years of our long-distance relationship, we are finally going to be together in a few months and are planning on doing a lot of travel. At this stage of our relationship, we’ve also realized that there’s a lot of mutual physical attraction and we fear that things may escalate anytime when we meet in person.

We are sure that we want to get married and spend our lives together. However, we cannot involve our families for Nikah yet due to multiple reasons. At the same time, we want our Nikah done as soon as possible and are considering involving a select few close people from our respective families to get it done.

Both of our families belong to the Sunni (Hanafi) faith and we understand that it is important for the lady to have her Guardian (Wali) approve the marriage. However, despite the father of my girlfriend being alive and in a continued relationship with her mother, he has been extremely abusive towards her family. He has at multiple instances attempted to sexually abuse both his daughters, including my girlfriend. We do not know what the jurisprudence is, but we would not take him as the Wali, come what may. Also, her paternal grandfather has passed away and she has been single-handedly raised by her mother. Apart from her mother, she has an elder sister and a younger brother, both of whom have attained majority. It is also important to mention that her maternal grandfather is alive and plays a partially active role in taking care of her family. Having said this, the only male person who we can involve from her family to get the Nikah done is her younger brother. It would also be important to mention that she has been financially independent for the past more than 6 years and living independent of her family.

Also, though we do not plan to make the Nikah public yet, I would be involving my eldest paternal uncle and aunt from my side. I am not involving my parents yet as we apprehend a lot of resistance from them, and it would be unfeasible to do so given our overall situation. Having my parents involved at this stage would only cause obstruction in the Nikah and would take us back to where we were i.e. being together without a Nikah.

In the given situation, our primary concern is how to get the Nikah done properly to start our lives as husband and wife. Please feel free to reach out for clarifications.

Looking forward to a speedy response!