Bridal shower for a planned “elopement”?

I'm sorry to say it, but when you decide to elope, forgoing pre-wedding events such as showers comes with the territory. If I were invited to a shower for somebody eloping, I would perceive it exactly as you yourself described: money-grubbing. Even if you don't have a registry, bridal showers come with the expectation of giving gifts. If you want to include guests, I think your best option would be to hold a post-wedding celebration after you're already married

When you elope you forgo all pre-wedding events. Also, it is poor form to host your shower. This idea is doubly wrong.

Unfortunately having a shower when eloping is often seen as a gift grab. This is because bridal showers are gift giving events the invite list for a shower is traditionally only people being invited to the wedding. Perhaps you can invite some friends for a nice brunch and have it not be tied to the wedding at all. Another option would be to have a happily ever after party when you return from the elopement (some people might give gifts but I wouldn't expect it). Wishing you all the best!

Unfortunately, none of what you propose will negate hard feelings, in fact more likely the opposite. You are obligated to invite anyone asked to a pre-wedding event to be a guest at your wedding. It’s not a justification that you don’t plan to register. A shower is by definition about gifts and it is etiquette appropriate for guests to bring something, registry or no registry.


It’s considered self serving and gift grabbing to host an event in your own honor, especially when gifts are part of the deal. A shower is optional, not an entitlement. It’s not doing people any favors or a way to include or compensate them for not being invited to your wedding.
Your best bet is to have a delayed celebration of some kind after the wedding where gifts are not expected.

It's rude to invite people to pre-wedding events without hosting them at the wedding. Also, you don't host your own shower, it's considered gauche, because you're planning a party in your own honour that involves gifts.

An idea would be to have friends and family over after the wedding to catch up and tell them about it. Not a reception per se, just a party.

Instead of hosting pre-wedding events (which will be seen as rude by many traditional people) just host some post-wedding events! Perhaps something resembling a reception or just a party to share the details of your elopement with everyone.

You cannot host your own bridal shower, and you’ll look gift-grubbing if you host one for an elopement. Just host a post-wedding celebration.

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Hello again:

Thanks for the feedback. I appreciate how candid everyone is, and I know the intentions are well-meaning. I feel like a complete dunce in this process. It's not like I've had this experience before. I had no idea that other people host showers. In fact, I was thinking I wouldn't even call it a shower, since I had the sneaking suspicion that it would be perceived as asking for gifts, when in fact I don't want any of that from people.

Has anyone here "eloped" in the sense that they got married without guests, and found a way to mitigate everyone's upset through the planning stage? I honestly don't know what to do. One on one talks aren't working, and I'm starting to think that doing anyone the "kindness" of telling them what my fiance and I need to do in terms of getting hitched, is just overall an ugly affair that I never should've shared with anyone.

Seems any which way around it, people are angry at me.

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When you try to throw in pre-wedding events with an elopement, even "non-gift giving ones" which, lets be honest, there is still a level of social etiquette that makes you bring something small, it looks like "I'm good enough to be invited and give you something, but not good enough for the wedding".

You can't please everyone. If you two want to get married, go get married and stop telling people about it. All you need is you, your fiancé, required witnesses (if any), and an officiant (or equivalent). If you are choosing to elope, there is not a way to please those who are already upset, especially if you are wanting involvement from them. It can come off as I'm spending all this time helping/celebrating you leading up to the wedding, but I am not invited. Makes it seem like it's all a waste if they don't get to be at the main event. Which is also why a lot of people don't care for live streamed weddings. It can be seen as "thank you for including me", but in my experience on this and other forums, they are seen in a negative light.

What I really don't understand is why "elopements" in this sense are even given a fair consideration then, because all the advice on this website from the editors in fact says that's it's being normalized because of unique circumstances such as ours: little money, later in life, coming from an international relationship.

If there was no way for it to be seen as socially acceptable, the industry has done a fine job of trying to convince people like me otherwise, at the expense of ruining some of my closest familial relationships.

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They are acceptable. But that doesn't mean people wont feel a certain way. True elopements are to run away and get married without parental consent. The young adults barely had any money anyway so they ran off. I don't know if they were ever viewed in a great light to begin with.

When you have family who are happy for you and think a wedding should involve family, they have been think of this for years and were excited for a wedding. You are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Our choices have consequences (I hate using that word instead of results). You are not wrong for wanting to elope based on what you and your fiancé want. And they are not "wrong" for feeling some type of way about it. I sympathize, I've also seen friends and their parents stop talking because of wedding planning. it's heart breaking.

View Quoted Comment Elopements ARE increasingly more accepted. They used to be incredibly scandalous. Now you’re not going to have any social stigma from it, but your friends and family who would’ve wanted to be at your wedding can still feel upset to have missed it. Elopements aren’t announced for exactly the reasons you’re seeing. You should stop talking about it and go do it. A quiet heads up immediately beforehand to your parents is all I might do. Then you come back and be happy. It’s kind of like naming a baby — if you tell everyone ahead of time the name, you’ll get lots of criticism because people think they might change it. But if you wait until after the baby’s born to announce the name, everyone says “Awww.” 😆

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In a way, I "eloped". My husband and I were very young, 18 and 19, and wanted to get married. My parents were not in favor, but being a kid, what are you going to do? They wanted us to wait, and even dangled the "if you wait 2 years we will pay for the whole wedding". Anyway, I called them one day and said "I am getting married on Thursday, if you want to be there, be there". They came, were VERY mad, and that was that. I had not even met my husband's family, they were not there, and they were upset.

It was what we wanted to do and that is what we did. There were no parties, no gifts, and no people-pleasing. It came down to we wanted to be married and what we wanted trumped what other people wanted. The anger lasted a very short time, and then the bets started coming in on how long the marriage would last. LOL

We will be celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary this year.

View Quoted Comment Fair consideration by whom? Whether eloping makes sense for any one given couple depends on many issues. Sometimes it’s personal and emotional or financial, sometimes there are complicated family dynamics, or the couple needs a quick marriage due to legal or medical issues. Sometimes it’s about an unplanned pregnancy and wanting to be married before a baby is born for legal, medical or religious reasons.


Whether a private wedding is “socially” acceptable has nothing to do with your parents’ individual feelings, though. The bottom line is some families are supportive of a decision to marry privately and some are not. No article on a wedding website or the fact that it does not happen to violate etiquette principles can make it acceptable to parents who have always dreamed of being present at their child’s wedding. This website didn’t ruin your family relationship or promise you that your choice will be supported by everyone.
So, you can either go ahead with your plan and let the chips fall where they may or compromise and have an intimate wedding that is local to and includes your immediate family. Of course if they are not contributing, or you would not accept such an offer, they have no say. Likewise you have no control over other people’s emotions.
What you can’t properly do is have all the pre-wedding events anyway or host your own for the reasons already given.

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The wedding industrial complex has no interest in validating an elopement, because they don't make money off of couples. They will promote huge expensive weddings, destination bachelorette's complete with "cute" group t-shirts etc, huge showers, and fancy honeymoons because that's their source of income. The same industry posts articles about fictitious "roles and duties" for wedding party members. It's all industry driven.

I would invite you to have a look at Cece's post in "married" in this forum to see how a private courthouse wedding can be amazing. She just posted her photos.

A note about virtual weddings, which were common during the pandemic, but honestly sometimes they aren't received as well as you would think, at least in my experience here.

I would encourage you to take some time and really consider what it is that you and your FI really want.

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OP seems to be suggesting the opposite, that the wedding industry in the form of one wedding website (?) has seemingly given its blessing to elopement, including for couples in her circumstances. She's confused as to why an individual family or family member may not be happy about not being invited to their child's wedding as long as elopements in general can make sense to some couples. Her logic escapes me.

Elopements have never been scandalous in real life. The Wedding Industry Complex wants couples and guests to believe that they are because they don’t generate the same amount of money for the vendors and venues. All throughout the 20th century (the 1900s), especially during war times, they were extremely common and accepted and that is where the majority of elopement etiquette stems from. It’s not the same as tradition, because etiquette is defined as navigating social interactions between humans to intentionally avoid awkward and uncomfortable situations, while tradition is doing something because ancestors or others expect it as a habit. (Social media created trends are neither). For example: a tradition would be the bridesmaids wear their best dress they already own and doesn’t have to be matching. Etiquette would be not inviting people after rsvps are due because you want to fill seats, because those hypothetical people know that they were not on the original list and feel uncomfortable accepting or attending.


That said, anytime someone elopes in the age old understanding of a couple marrying (not even in secret, because many are planned) with just the officiant, the couple themselves and the 1-2 legal witnesses as required by the state, they forfeit all pre wedding festivities, because there is no one to celebrate with. A microwedding (2-50 guests) is not an elopement, but if one of the invited guests chooses to host a shower with only the rest of the VIP guest list, that is acceptable. But they can’t host a shower or bachelorette and invite other people who are not on the wedding day guest list, so that is why the etiquette leans towards forgoing all pre wedding events.