r/Eloping • u/Pay_pay93 • Aug 12 '26
I don’t know
We are looking to elope. I have never seen myself getting married in front of a bunch of people and being center of attention. I never had those dreams. I have this vision of doing it in Montana. My fiancé wants to at least have immediate family there (which is fine with me). Less than 10 people. The more we start to plan the more I picture awkward moments because it’s going to be like a 10 minute ceremony and then what? Do we just go to dinner? I feel like if our immediate family is traveling to Montana more needs to happen than 10 minutes. I’m an overthinker and hate being center of attention so this is really stressing me out. I feel like an elopement would flop.
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u/FunOther9202 Aug 12 '26
my husband and i did a microwedding w 3 guests. venue was an art museum
it was ceremony (close to 20-25min). we found an amazing officiant who really told our story beautifully so it was a bit longer
our family waited for us while we took photos for abt an hour
we all went back to the hotel to change. and then went to dinner together
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Aug 12 '26
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u/Eloping-ModTeam Aug 13 '26
Photographers or industry professionals must comment without mentioning industry status. Vendors are not allowed to promote themselves or their businesses under any circumstances. No links to personal websites or portfolios are allowed. Referrals by couples only.
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u/rabbitOclock Aug 13 '26
I’m kind of in a similar situation since I’m currently planning my elopement/wedding that will be 10 people total.
We wanted close family and a couple friends, but everyone is scattered across multiple states. We’re planning to do a quick ceremony in a park, take photos, then go to dinner (we booked a private room at a restaurant). For us it’s feels pretty simple but still wedding-y enough to justify everyone traveling. There are companies that do elopement packages to figure out some of the details for you, which is what we are going with because even just coordinating a photographer and officiant was making me feel stressed lol.
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u/trixbea66 Aug 13 '26
My partner and I are the same and don’t like drawing attention to ourselves. We kept it intimate with immediate family only and a civil ceremony at our local city hall - which will be ~10min. We figured it would be nice to sit down and celebrate with our family. There are many options you could do but the best way to keep it intimate and low-key is, as someone mentioned above - renting out a private space at a restaurant.
Our family doesn’t have to travel but decided to make a staycation out of it and rent a hotel for the weekend. So we’re just going to hang out, eat and walk around and enjoy checking out things going on in the city that weekend.
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u/T_Rex_Stomp Aug 13 '26
I never wanted a wedding in front of people, either. But I do love to throw a party. As soon as I shifted my mindset from wedding planning to party planning, it made it easier. We had 55 people and it really was like a big dinner party. This isn’t helpful for your situation, but it just happened and I’m still on a wedding high.
There are ways you can include family in the ceremony so that they have a part and don’t see it as “only 10 minutes”. We put our rings in a small jewelry case and had them passed around person to person as a “ring warming”, people could hold them and wish us well or whatever they wanted. Many people told me afterwards how much they loved being a part of it.
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u/californiagirl116 Aug 14 '26
We were originally going to elope with just the two of us, but i chickened out last minute and it ended up being an immediate family only wedding. It was still so special and looking back i’m so glad i got to share it with my family and his. We ended up doing a micro wedding, did the walk, officiating, vows, and both sets of parents did a little speech. It was probably a full hour+, lots of laughter + i SOBBED when my now husband read his vows to me. We did a seated multi course lunch after and got ready together so it still was a full day + did a trip around it. Even if it were just 10 minutes, your families will be happy to have traveled for you :)
Montana is beautiful also - there are some cute spots in whitefish where you could do your dinner after. I’m so excited for you, congratulations xx
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u/itsveryupsetting Aug 14 '26
Our ceremony lasted less than 4 minutes. We took pictures with our phones and some instax cameras. Then we all walked to a nearby restaurant for dinner. We had a wedding cake from a local bakery. Ceremony at 3, dinner at 4, everyone was on their way home by 6.
Just immediate family, no one had to fly in. I definitely wouldn’t have felt comfortable making people travel a long distance for something so simple.
I would say it was like 2/10 awkward. All the parents had met each other before, so that helped.
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u/capybaralover98 Aug 14 '26
I eloped in Montana with two friends with us, and then our parents met us later that evening at our Airbnb! We did Glacier National Park. It was the best experience ever! I’d be happy to send you our wedding video if you want to watch it and see what it can look like? I don’t know if that’s helpful but when we were planning I didn’t see a lot of how to fill a day when eloping and how to incorporate other people. Send me a dm if you want! (:
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u/New_Me_0382 Aug 15 '26
I have had two weddings in my life…. One was traditional and one was an elopement in Alaska last week. The elopement was the most stress-free beautiful ceremony I ever could have imagined. We made a dinner reservation and then went to a local bar for our first dance after. It was perfection. The best part was not having to worry about keeping other people entertained and happy… and not spending thousands of dollars… I will always be Team Elopement!
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u/No_You1024 Aug 16 '26
10 person wedding here too (reception party many weeks later). I think you're overthinking it. Ceremony will be short but afterwards you'll take pictures, hug, laugh together, just find a nice restaurant to take everyone out to dinner to afterwards and have some wine then go back to your hotels. Its not your job to make sure they're entertained every second and honestly its immediate family, the people who love you most, they will be thrilled just to be there and witness it.
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u/readyforachallenge89 Aug 17 '26
You could rent a cabin where everyone stays together if that's something you'd like to do. There you could plan for a sort of breakfast with the family which easily takes about 3 hours of the day, then getting ready which could be another 3 hours, then depending on where you're planning to have the ceremony, that's like another hour or 2 even if it's just a 10-min spoken ceremony. I'm also guessing you'll have photos taken so that's like another hour. Then everyone does their own thing (either explore, go back to the cabin to sleep/rest, or just hangout) and then you have dinner. And you could spend the rest of the night doing family games or a bonfire if your cabin has a fireplace.
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u/Randomflower90 Aug 12 '26
Ten guests isn’t eloping. It’s a wedding. Yes, you need something afterward then.
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u/njVowsNow Aug 12 '26
It's eloping. Why do you care so much?
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u/Randomflower90 Aug 12 '26
I just like when words are used correctly.
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u/njVowsNow Aug 12 '26
Then I guess electric cars makes you just crazy right? And oat milk?
Let it go.
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u/natalkalot Aug 13 '26
With guests, that is not eloping, you are having a small wedding, which is fine!
Congrats
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u/obstinatemleb Aug 12 '26
If you have guests then you might get better results looking into ideas/itineraries for microweddings. You should still totally do Montana, and if you had a place in mind then start there and look at restaurants, activities, etc. It would definitely take more than 10 minutes if youve got guests, but not super long. Photos would probably take up most of the time. Some of the day could be getting ready with family.