Dying to elope- vent

@ashmar--are you me? Same exact situation. I will say after the initial planning madness (nailing down the venue and vendors), I told the fiance the rest of the wedding was his job, and I think he'll come through. He's taking care of invites, transportation, planning the honeymoon, etc. It's nice because at this point I'm just relaxing and enjoying the final countdown.

We met in the middle by cutting the guest list to 28 people.

At first my husband and I were going to go to Vegas and call it a day, then after thinking about decided we wanted our family there so ,We just eloped in NYC we had our kids and our parents there. After we went out to eat it was lovely. Do what ever makes u feel happy. Can afford to elope where u live with your parents/close friends ? Then go on a family honey moon ?

@Saint we definitely could and if we did an intimate elopement with only parents/siblings then we would do it local. I just figured if we were gonna elope anyways it would be cool to just do it all in hawaii just the three of us but that's more of just a dream idea of mine than anything

I was in rather the opposite situation -- husband wanted to elope to Bali or wherever, but I couldn't imagine getting married without including our parents. (I'm an only child.). So we had our sweet, unconventional wedding.

My situation was slightly different because we were never going to invite a huge crowd. We don't have huge families in one geographical area, or a ton of friends. I definitely endorse the tiny wedding plan! When you invite only the nuclear family, the rest of the family is more likely to be understanding.

Me and FH decided to basically elope and we went from planning a good size ceremony n stuff to deciding on a intimate family only ceremony at city hall with our kids,and parents and sisters and taken them out to a nice lunch or dinner afterwards and then us 2 going to a nice hotel for the weekend and relaxinh and enjoy being husband n wife finally we found it less stressful and with more meaning and less expensive and less family drama

@AshMar that's what's happening to me as well. FH wanted the big wedding, I wanted to elope. Now I'm the one organizing everything. At OP have a small wedding with close family.

I seriously thought/am thinking about eloping because of my anxiety issues.. I was for sure under the impression that my mom would lose it. I told her today how I've been feeling and she actually said she would support whatever I wanted to do, just goes to show that people can surprise you! Maybe his parents won't be as upset as you think they will be. I thought my mother would have a heart attack! Lol

My FH and I are eloping in Punta Cana in 2 weeks. We are having an intimate ceremony on the beach just him and I, and it's absolutely beautiful from the pictures I have seen of the company we went with. We got our ceremony, hair and makeup for me, and a photographer for $1,400, and then our hotel/flights were $2,300. My FH family wasn't very thrilled about it because they are used to having huge weddings, but neither of us wanted to deal with the stress of a big wedding and my parents were completely happy with whatever we wanted to do and think its a good idea. Plus we are saving a ton of money!!

IMO - It's your day and you and your FH should do whatever makes you happy regardless of what your family thinks!

@Kailee When I seriously started considering eloping, we had many conversations about it. He wasn't totally on board to begin with, but he was just like your FH- willing to save the money but didn't want to spend it on a wedding. We did some research and we found an elopement package that was perfect and we decided that was the route we wanted to go.

95% of the reason I wanted to elope was because of the guest list. I have way too many family members that I didn't really want to invite but there was no way around it cause their all drama queens and I didn't want that in the family (again, after a huge thing in 2012). His family is basically just his parents. We talked to our parents and told them what we wanted to do and why. Everyone was super supportive on board. We also talked to our closest friends, and I talked to an aunt and uncle and a cousin that are extremely important to me and they were all also on board. So it's going to be just the two of us, a photographer, and an officiant.

I still went dress shopping with my mom, cousin, and aunt. We hired a photographer. We're sending out announcements. My mom and cousin threw us a couples shower. And we'd like to host a small reception at a restaurant when his parents visit from Alaska but we are not sure if we will be able to afford that yet.

I agree with other posters that you could just invite immediate family. But I would hope that if you decided to elope, his family would understand and respect your wishes and support you regardless. The word "elope" does kind of have a bad connotation, so when we were talking to our parents we just left it out of the conversation and called it a "private/intimate ceremony." Because eloping is technically running away to be married in secret, we didn't want anyone to feel like we were being secretive. Everyone knows what's happening, they know where we're going. The only thing we kept under wraps is the date because we wanted one element of surprise and our friends and family are beyond excited to get their announcement in the mail!

I know you've talked to him before, but I think you and your FH just need to sit down and talk again about your options. And the financial aspect of an elopement vs. a traditional wedding are extremely important. Again, a small wedding with just immediately family would be just as swell too.

Good luck to you!

The segment of our practice that is growing the fastest is our weddings between 20-50 people...not quite an elopement but small enough that the extended family doesn't get offended. We probably do 40 of these a year.

You get a cool dress, you get a musician, a photographer for a couple of hours, a great officiant and it's a beautiful, elegant party. We can get this together, in NJ, for 20 people for under 5000.00, and these weddings are gorgeous. You get to spend time with everyone, it's not frantic and stressful, and you'll be just as married at the end.

I'm in the same boat as AshMar

I wish I eloped! I wanted to originally and now I regret not doing it! We already have children together though so our families wouldn't be surprised.