Elopement

After dating for more than a year and a half and living together since last summer, my girlfriend and I have started talking about getting married. Nothing is imminent, but one of the options we discussed was elopement. We figure the benefits are less cost and less stress. The drawbacks might be hard feelings from family members and friends who would have wanted in on the deal. Mostly we fear that from her side, because I am sure mine would be fine with it. Any way my mother could get her 34-year-old son married would be fine with her. But her family, while well-intentioned, can be difficult to get along with for no good reason sometimes, and a wedding might not satisfy them anyway. That's why elopement seems appealing.

Anybody ever been involved with one of these things, from either the perspective of the marriers or someone close to them?

EDIT TO ADD: Another drawback: no gifts?

 

My wife and I thought the same thing....just elope and to hell with the mess and costs of an actual wedding and such.

Much easier said than done, especially when you have family that insists on being there. So we did an actual wedding, minus the bells and whistles. Small ceremony, only close family and friends. All told, about 20 or so people. It was perfect.

All depends on how many people you'd invite if you held a wedding.

 

But in an elopement, you don't tell anyone until it's done, right? Then they can't insist on being there.

I think a small, simple ceremony would be great. I don't think her family would approve of it, though. Despite being recent immigrants from humble origins, they are quite materialistic. Not that we need their approval, but my thinking is why even incur that cost if it's certain not to satisfy them?

 

If I'm not invited, your dead to me.

 

Yeah. Good point. We actually told our famly we were thinking about just eloping and not having a ceremony or anything. Maybe just an after party later that summer when we had time.

We were also living 12 hours from our family at the time.

 

I'm really not sure elopement is a word. Although my spell check doesn't flag it.

When my father got re-married, he and my stepmother had a very small ceremony at her house, just me and my sister and stepsister, my fathers' parents (hers had passed away already) and, I think, one, maybe two, friends of hers. I was, I suppose, the best man, although my only real duty was to witness the marriage certificate.

Then they had a reception right afterward to which all their friends were invited. Something like that would at least hold down the costs of church rental, flowers, bridesmaids' dresses, etc., while still allowing you to celebrate with (and, yes, receive gifts from) friends and family.

 

I think if you are in your 20s, you should think about a wedding. It sounds crazy, but I think if you are 22 or 23, you are much closer to still being your parents' children than grown adults.

If you are in your mid 30s, you probably think, like my wife and I did, that you are too old for this wedding crap, so we eloped to an island and combined the wedding and the honeymoon together. I think it cost about $3-4,000 total, which I am guessing is 1/10th the cost of a big wedding. Plus, we went to a very nice place on our honeymoon.

One bit of advice if you do elope, pay the money to have the wedding professionally recorded on a DVD. We paid about a grand for this, but now people can see the wedding ceremony. Plus, we have good photos for a wedding album.

 

I had my doubts before starting the thread, so I checked it in the dictionary.

 

Oh, we also had two seperate wedding receptions in the states, but they were more like really nice BBQs that were catered. Nothing too crazy, but a way for people to meet me and to meet my wife.

 

Our wedding was fairly inexpensive. The most expensive thing was renting the house, which the parents and in-laws paid for. Everything else was pretty cheap. The parents and in-laws made dinner every night (we did a three-day, two-night thing) and we only had to hire a preacher guy and a photog, which I believe, we got in a package deal. My mom made the wedding cake and it was great. Everyone chipped in with the "decorations" or whatever they were.

We still haven't taken our honeymoon yet. We're thinking next summer.

 

You could always elope, not tell anyone & then when the time is right, plan a small ceremony. That way your guests will be happy & you can still get some gifts. ;D

 

My wedding was fairly inexpensive. The reception hall rental was only $50 because it was at my wife's church. Dinner was chicken from Wal-Mart, plus my wife's dad prepared some sides in mass quantities. Decorations and invitations pretty much were dollar store items. For music, we made up a few custom CDs and a guy form the church volunteered to play them and insert certain songs for specific dances as needed. The photographer volunteered in order to gain experience. The cake also was made by someone in the church. My wife's grandma made her dress. There were probably a little over 100 guests, mostly from her side of the family. My more distant relatives didn't want to make the five-hour trip, I guess, which was OK. The other bonus was it didn't take a ton of planning time. We were married less than six months after we were engaged. Of course, we dated for four and a half years before we got married. But this seemed to suit everybody just fine.

It just didn't make sense to us to spend money on a wedding when it could better be used for our future.

My wife's sister's wedding was even simpler ... she was married about a month and a half after getting engaged. I'm not sure I reccommend that, but it can be done.