Have any brides cancelled their wedding to elope?

It's my second wedding, but FH's first. He was the one who insisted on the full wedding. I wanted to elope. Now that we're close to the date, I'm not regretting a minute of it. I'm overjoyed that our friends and family will be there to celebrate. Every day that gets closer, is just that much better. We are very lucky to have the financial resources to have the party of our dreams. I can't wait.

@ Karen thats great! we were not sure & we are planning it now, i find it so stressful! id rather go away & just marry him!

Nope, the way I see it is that you only do it once.It gets stressful believe me I know especially having a DW but it will all be worth it.

I go back and forth every other day, hoping it's just jitters!

Mine is not about jitters its more about the money & stress. It cost a lot of money to have a wedding & we are doing a lot of cut backs. (including honeymoon) Occasionally, i think hey why not take the money & have a wedding/ honeymoon together, instead of feeding 100 of our closest family & friends, plus flowers, invites, ect. My FH & his family want the big wedding, I'm torn. I think i would rather have the quality time with him.

We did ,Between moving and finding new jobs we couldnt plan a big wedding for the date we wanted so we eloped and are doing a vow renewal ( Every one is calling it a wedding except me hahaha) on our 2 year wedding anniversary

We were going to do a big wedding down the shore but it was so expensive and we had a cap on the amount of people we could invite. We decided to scrap the big fancy wedding, have something in our backyard, and spend more on the honeymoon!

I hear this every day.

FH and I have discussed it but only because we want to be married NOW and not wait another year.

I've definitely thought about it, but I know that when the day comes the money and stressful moments will all be worth it.

We are 'eloping'. Our family & friends know we will be eloping next June, celebrating in Jamaica, the 1st country we traveled to together, and then having a reception with our friends/fam in August.

You have to decide what you can realistically afford & what is important to you. We wanted to focus on us & then celebrate with everyone.

Caitlin, you can be married now.......

After five years together, knowing we were forever, but both of us thinking we wouldn't ever marry, and then suddenly faced with medical emergencies and the reality that we very much wanted to be able to care for each other and have legal rights to do so... we realized we wanted to marry, but weren't really into a traditional wedding. We talked to our parents and this is what we did...

- we got engaged

- we hired a photog for an engagement photo session

- we got a marriage license

- after we took the first set of engagement photos, we changed clothes, walked to a garden in the center of town, met the officiant, and with the photog snapping away, we legally married

- we sent out engagement announcements and began planning a church wedding with just our immediate families, followed the next day by a big 'ol 'family reunion' party, to bring the families together and celebrate our marriage.

I honestly forget that I'm married, technically, most of the time - but it let us have that moment for ourselves, while still honoring our faith tradition and sharing the experience with our families, on our own terms.

What I've come to realize is that most of the pressure we experience comes from our assumptions about what others want from *our* wedding! Oddly, once we had the legal paper in hand, I felt much more calm about everything else, because we wanted to be *married*. The reception, pardon the pun, is icing on the cake!

I would totally do it in a heartbeat. But I've been married before. I've had the wedding. My FH eloped the first time and he wants this day so we are doing it. But even he has said he wishes we had done it like we talked about just us and my son.

It's being highly considered. we'll still have the big ceremony next year but at our rate...with my parents not knowing im engaged yet, with me having high anxiety over trying to plan a wedding when i never in my 32 years even considered ever getting married, we figured eloping will take the stress off and let us just relax and plan for later....and no one in our circle needs to know we eloped....bonus.

Totally did this. Went from big church ceremony and reception w/ 180-person guest list to a tiny ceremony including immediate family only and a BBQ/picnic a month later. We are still taking a honeymoon.

Sara - one of our friends did that. They eloped in January a couple years ago and didn't tell anyone. Then they planned a big party in late September that year. They did another ceremony there too - but just for show (My FH did the ceremony -which is the only reason I knew about it). But it took a lot of stress off them so they were just planning a party - not a wedding

A wedding is a Once in a lifetime Celebration of your marriage with your Friends and family (at least it should be). Sure you can go to the court house and get it legalized, but will your Mom be happy about not celebrating with you?

Sure, there a lot of things about the Wedding which are ridiculous and over done (and I don't want), but I do want to celebrate my Life Event with my Family and Friends, Plus its kinda nice to be the "queen" for a day..

. Maybe its just my culture, that a wedding should be large and glamorous (although ours will be under 150), since Marriage kinda is a big deal.

As far as the honeymoon goes, there's honeyfund... as well as waiting a year after your marriage to go on a "real" honeymoon. Right after your wedding you can have a "mini-moon". Still quality time..just doesn't need to be the "glamorous" trip to Hawaii, Jamaica, Europe or some other exotic island/country.....

Point being, You really have your whole life to spend "quality" time with your FH on "honeymoons", but there's only one chance for you to celebrate your Marriage with your Friends and Family. (or should be one chance.....)

This is my 2nd wedding and my fiancé's first. I wanted something bigger this time around. However, I almost cancelled it recently to elope. Not because of stress or financial reasons, but because we lost a co-worker recently just out of the blue. She was only 4 years older then me. She died of a heart attack in her sleep. Things like that make you take stock of what's important and what's not and also wonder if you will even be around a year from now. After I got my emotions under control I decided to go through with our original wedding plan. I already have my dress and the venue is booked.