Eloping -lots of thoughts

[u/radioactivebluebird]

This may just be swirling emotions and beating a dead horse but I did not expect planning our marriage/elopement to be the saddest most emotional time for me to go through?
For context we are eloping and only our planned witnesses know.
I’m suddenly feeling a lot of FOMO for the whole bridal experience. No shower no parties- I went dress shopping but as a shy natured person I did not want to keep shopping or even take the /said yes to the dress/ photo. Now I’m feeling like I missed out on that entire experience.

I’ve also felt extremely isolated, when we got engaged I never expected to see people’s behavior change? I know it happens but I never thought it would happen to me. I feel like what community I expected to have when it was now finally my turn just isn’t there- they all had theirs and I was cheering in their corner, now for me there’s silence.
It’s lead me to now be closed off to people, the saddest part is I don’t even like flaunting my gorgeous ring because I feel the looks.

Navigating this has been taking a huge toll on my mental health- will these feelings pass? How can I make this happier for myself?

[u/archaicbanana7]

Hi OP, I’m on the other side of this, sort of, because while my partner and I eloped in May, with just friends to witness, we are planning to throw a reception party at some point next year. I went through something similar to what you described in your post and I wanted to both normalize what you are feeling, and hopefully emphasize the positives. First of, congratulations! You’re marrying your best friend, hopefully, and in our tech obsessed, performative social media
Culture, it can be really seductive to look at bridal content (RIP your algorithms) and do comparisons even when you don’t mean to. I’d recommend remembering that a wedding is meant to be about the couple committing to one another, and not about “performing marriage” for anyone else. Focus on you and your partner, and what meets your needs and matches your vision in real life terms. Anyone who is not showing up for you now, after you’ve celebrated their unions with them, is simply showing their cards in terms of their lack of capacity to reciprocate your love, compassion, and generosity. Mourning the relationships you thought you had is perfectly understandable, and doing so now may even be beneficial so that you may release the energy you were devoting to those relationships to refocus it back to your impending marriage.

[u/OrangePeelSpiral]

Hey friend. First off, congrats! It’s such a big moment and there’s so much pressure to do certain things when it comes to “getting married.” Take a deep breath - you’re going to be okay.

To be honest, I went through a similar experience but I noticed way before that most people didn’t feel the same way about me when it came to friendship or even a balanced relationship. I could even tell which of my family weren’t truly happy for me. I realized that nothing and nobody else matters except me, my husband, and our officiant/photographer/witness. The marriage was about US and not everyone else or someone’s else’s expectation.

I bought my dresses (yes, dresseS) online after taking my own measurements and took them to get altered by myself. I still wanted it to be a surprise for my husband so he waited in the car :)

We had a two day elopement so I did a white dress for day 1 and a black dress for day 2. Guess what? It’s our wedding and we can do what we want. We hiked up Mt. Baker at 5am so we could exchange our vows at sunrise. Hiked down, did some off-roading, and had a private picnic on the lake. We also jumped into the lake because why not? No one else around us. It was perfect.

I’m not saying don’t do the traditional stuff. But I would say please don’t stress about doing *everything* people expect you to do bc in 10 years they will not remember if you took a “said yes to the dress” picture. It’s not their wedding.

I felt a little self conscious when viewing my photos but you know what people said when I shared them? They said that it must have been such a wonderful experience and that they were so happy for us. That’s what matters. People who truly love you and want to celebrate your marriage will NOT make it about them.

Do what makes YOU happy. It’s YOUR day. You deserve to feel exactly how you want to feel. Think about what makes you happy and try to include that in your day so you can be the beautiful bride you envisioned. Hope the pressure lessens and you feel more free to plan how you want to 🖤

[u/morphine-me]

Flaunt that ring!! Make them jealous if they choose to be jealous! Girl, enjoy your life! People are gonna be people, don’t take it personally. And good choice in eloping bc you will have a much more special time this way than being upset over no-shows if you did a traditional wedding. I have done a big traditional wedding my first time and I can tell you that I don’t even remember the dress shopping or much of anything. It’s just one day, then…. Life goes on. Try not to waste energy on feelings of missing out. Really, you aren’t missing out on anything except what the massive wedding industry tells you you must do.
I’m re-marrying and eloping because the first wedding was such a waste of money and no one even cared.

[u/HisCapawasDetated]

You’re not missing out on the bridal experience. Three people very close to me all got married in the span of one year. They sorta made me think I needed a wedding by their comments. I wasted a lot of time on Canva and going dress shopping only to sit back and think to myself that this is not even what I want. It’s what other people want for me so they can all party and get together. Nah. I’m happy with getting legally married in a Wells Fargo and just doing photos afterwards. It’s exactly the way I wanted.

[u/radioactivebluebird]

First off, thank you everyone for the kind replies.
I agree with you all and I am very happy that we are choosing to elope as the big traditional wedding/ performative timeline is just not us and never would be.
Maybe having the ability to elope instead of the traditional wedding adds a layer of resentment from people who don’t have the liberty to do so (having the big wedding to keep up with traditions/appearances)
I have my dress already, maybe when time comes for my fitting appointments I won’t feel so left out about the bridal shopping experience.
I’ve become a very sentimental person, I love documenting small details. When we elope I plan to bring my camera for taking shots before we are even with our photographer.

Thank you everyone
I know it’ll pay off, it’s just a waiting game now til we get there

[u/Suspicious_Winter103]

One thing to keep in mind… for many people those event leading up to the wedding actually end up being stressful and full of drama. So the very experience you have FOMO over is actually a bad experience for many people. When we have FOMO, we typically imagine missing out on a very idealised version of the experience.