How did you elope?

I have not eloped, but a friend of mine has. Her and her (now husband) went to the Bahamas to elope. It was planned, it was just the two of them, he wore a tux and she wore a wedding dress. They enjoyed a week long honeymoon, while they were there. They had a few photos taken (unsure on the professional quality though). They did not have any witnesses, as they wanted it to be just the two of them. She has a daughter, and they have family they love, but this was how they wanted their wedding. For their one year anniversary, they went back and took their daughter with them for a family/anniversary vacation.

I will not be eloping but I wanted to. Quite a few wedding planners have elopement packages that I was looking at. They planned a small ceremony and lunch or dinner for under 10 people. The pictures from them looked amazing!

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Danielle,

That sounds amazing!

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Emjo,

That's what we got..well not the lunch dinner part, but our Elopement Package comes with the officiant, and a one hour professional photographer. The photo's look great, so I'm staying positive

Thanks for sharing.

I don’t know why everyone gets so up in arms about whether people want to call it an elopement or an “intimate destination wedding” - I say, it’s your wedding (or elopement), you get to call it whatever you want!
I’m getting married in exactly two weeks and we are calling it a pseudo-elopement, mainly to keep people from jumping down our throats by calling it a true elopement. We call it that because no one besides our parents/siblings know we are getting married - no one else even knows we are engaged (we didn’t want to deal with people asking if they were invited/etc when we knew we wanted to do it small and our way). I think the secret part is what makes us lean toward calling it an elopement, but it’s not a hard and fast rule.

We live in MN but are getting married in my parents’ backyard in AZ. We’ve been planning for about a year. I am still having the dress, bouquet, photographer, even a very small cake. But everything we got was part of “elopement packages” too and we aren’t having any formal reception, just a nice dinner out. For us, it’s all of the best parts of a wedding without the obligations, huge expense, and extended family drama (or the craziness/work of planning something huge - this was so easy).
We even have a “we eloped” sign for pictures for when we tell people.

I’ve always considered an elopement as getting married without anyone else knowing about it ahead of time. Like “ Surprise, we’re married”. When people know about it, you do some planning and have at least one guest, I’d call it a micro wedding.

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Victoria,

Very Smart! and sounds amazing.

I wish we would have kept ours a secret, ha!

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SraDeCarrillo,

Thanks for sharing your opinion

We eloped the old fashioned way. Didn't tell anyone in advance. My dad loved it, my mom, NOT. But she got over it.

I notice that nowadays elopement has two meaning: the way we did it, and a micro wedding. Even the photographers list "elopement" wedding pachages.

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Melissa O'

Thank you for sharing. I guess mine would be considered a micro wedding than, but I still prefer to say Elopement, ha!

Most venues I looked at that offered elopement packages had anything from just the bride and groom, up to 10 guests. I think what you're doing is definitely considered an elopement! I also feel that the term "eloping" has evolved. Maybe it used to be flying the coop and not telling anyone, but a lot of people our age are opting to spend way less on the wedding and do a planned elopement.

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Allie,

Exactly! Wedding's have evolved Thank you for putting it so perfectly.

We moved to Las Vegas and decided that since we were here why not! We'd been engaged for 3 years at that point. I didn't wear a "wedding dress". It was white, but I got it from Ross and it was very casual. I made my bouquet but I did have one. We hired a photographer and it really paid off! It was planned (we saw a groupon for a chapel and booked it a month or so out). We had a friend who'd come in to town and a friend who we met when we moved. I wish we would have waited, I missed having my mom and family there. We're having a larger wedding this October! We just couldn't afford a wedding at the time, but were so ready to be married.

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Kiana,

That makes complete sense. Thank you for sharing.