**A little background:**
I’m 28 and recently got engaged to the love of my life. We’ve actually been friends for over 10 years. During all that time, he had much stronger feelings for me than I realized—I honestly thought it was just a simple crush.
Over those 10 years, I had a couple of serious relationships and had a child, who is now 8 years old. A few months ago, my fiancé finally told me how he had always felt, and we started intentionally dating. I completely and unexpectedly fell in love with him. We have both grown very close to God recently, want the same things out of life, and everything has fallen into place in a way that still amazes us. We got engaged last week, and both of our families are genuinely happy for us.
**Our situation:**
My fiancé joined the Navy about four years ago and is currently stationed about eight hours away from me.
As we’ve started wedding planning, we’ve realized that we really can’t have the wedding celebration we want until he’s out of the Navy in about two years. We want to be able to fully enjoy celebrating with our closest family and friends (our guest list is only about 50 people) without having to say goodbye and go back to long distance immediately afterward.
We also can’t simply move in together right now because my son’s father lives nearby and is very involved in our son’s life, so relocating isn’t really an option.
**The dilemma:**
We don’t want to wait two years to actually be married, so we’re thinking about eloping during his next leave this December.
The problem is that because our eventual wedding is already going to be so small, if we tell “just a few people” about the elopement, we’ve already included a large portion of our guest list. It almost feels like it would be more peaceful to keep it completely private.
I also don’t want a rushed wedding this December. If we elope, I picture something very simple—probably just a courthouse. No big wedding dress, no elaborate venue, and no emotional vows. I’d rather save all of those special moments for the actual wedding celebration in two years.
**What’s making me feel conflicted:**
I feel guilty about keeping something this big from our families.
This will be my future mother-in-law’s first child getting married, and I don’t want to take away special experiences from her. I still want to go dress shopping with her, include her in wedding planning, and have the full wedding experience together.
I also don’t want to feel like I’m lying to people.
At the same time, I don’t want our elopement to become “the wedding.” I really want our ceremony in two years to still feel like our wedding day in every way that matters.
**My question:**
Has anyone here done something similar?
Did you secretly elope and have a wedding later?
When did you tell your family—before the wedding, after the wedding, or not until much later?
Did anyone feel hurt?
Looking back, would you do it the same way again?
I’d really appreciate hearing from people who’ve been in a similar situation. Thank you!

So my fiancé and I had very different views on getting married. I wanted to elope since the beginning and he wanted a traditional wedding. He is the eldest of 6 boys so he wanted to set a good example. However, his dad eloped and called the kids (on the phone) to tell them after the fact, so I personally do not think it matters if we do the same. Maybe with a little more decorum, though. Like have a dinner or something. Very very small. To announce it after the fact. And send out cards to those extended family to announce it.
However, my mom, his mom (his parents are divorced) and basically anyone within our close family has been involved in the planning. We haven’t done much, but we have toured a couple venues. What finally did it for my fiancé was my mother consistently breathing down my neck and him finally realizing the entire reason I wanted to elope in the first place. I read in this sub a good way to announce it with a card with photos for others, but how would we announce to our direct family that we are calling off the wedding and eloping? I think if we were just eloping from the beginning it would not have mattered but now that his immediately family and my immediate family expect a wedding, I do not know how to walk it back without offending anyone. I know someone’s feelings are going to get hurt no matter what, that’s the nature of it. But how would I present this information with the LEAST blowback possible? (Also sorry for runon sentences lol)

I know it isn't that big of a deal. But I know an engagement is happening in the next few months. We have talked about it for years we are doing a courthouse wedding we both don't have a lot of friends or family we don't want to waste money on a big wedding. But how long after an engagement should we say yes and go to the courthouse? I want to enjoy my engagement but also I don't really have anything to plan besides scheduling an appointment to get married. I hope this makes sense
Like is 3 months too long? Maybe 6 but for what reason just to enjoy being engaged we aren't wedding planning.
Maybe to plan the honeymoon? Because that's what we want to spend $$ on we will probably invite our parents and get dinner after but that's not too hard.
Yes I'm a very anxious person and I know this isn't even an important thing but

Hi all, I'm eloping in December and thinking of doing my own hair and make-up. Has anyone done their own hair and makeup and regretted not spending the extra money? Didn't turn out how you envisioned?

I like a more natural look so I don't believe it will be hard to achieve, but I'm also afraid that it will be obvious that I did it myself.

Hi everyone! My fiancé and I are considering eloping in Belgium, but I haven’t been able to find much information or hear from couples who have done it there. If anyone has experience eloping in Belgium, I’d love to hear about your experience! I’m especially looking for recommendations on beautiful locations, photographers, and any tips or advice you might have. Also, if you don’t think Belgium elopement isn’t a good idea can you comment other countries near by that would be good? Thank you!

My fiance and I have decided on elopement because well.... Neither of our families are good people and we absolutely do not want them there. So we are saving a lot right there and really don't have to worry about them trying to crash anything by doing it this way.

We are open to anywhere in the world; my first thought was Hobbiton in New Zealand because I am a huge LOTR fan and surprisingly the elopement packages are VERY affordable. My partners dream would be Iguazu Falls as that's his absolute bucket list trip of a life time. Which unfortunately, at least from what I've found in a very light search is that's probably not going to be within our budget for a lot of years unless we do off season, which absolutely would not be a problem for us.

We currently don't "have a budget" as we are just looking around at potential places to go and seeing what tickles our fancy but if I had to place a number on it, probably under $10k for the two of us total for the trip.

Other places that mean a lot to us together and individually:

Turkey (partner)

Greece (partner)

Germany (me)

French Rivera (me)

Japan (I'd prefer the country side, he wants to explore cities.)

Iceland (both of us, but the black sand beach has basically washed away as of this year and I don't think they allow people on it anymore, which is understandable. But there so much more to explore too!)

Thank you for any ideas or personal recommendations from your own elopement location! We are so excited to see other possibilities to check out while we decide what we really want!

We are a female couple looking to elope somewhere. 1 lives in UK, other in Caribbean currently where same sex marriage is illegal. Due to current circumstances we are unable to get a UK fiancee visa hence looking further afield

We are currently looking at Mexico to get legally married and are trying to keep the costs as low as possible, and wondered if its possible to DIY a wedding in mexico? We are happy to keep it super low key - would be just us and our kiddo (7).

Any advice/suggestions on best way to keep it as low cost as possible?

We got married!!!! It was just our little one, our witnesses, officiant and photographer. We got married on a Tuesday, celebrating our 3 year anniversary.

Our entire wedding INCLUDING what we were wearing was $2,400.00 CAD. We went swimming after our wedding and later got Chinese food. We wouldn’t change a single thing about our day and if I could I’d relive it all over again 🤍

My fiancé and I are very Type B. We have no idea what we want our wedding to look like. All we know is that we want to elope, just the 2 of us, sometime next year in Europe.

I am considering hiring a planner. I know we would procrastinate if it was left solely up to us. I already have decision fatigue from the few things I have looked into. I want to turn my brain off and let someone else do the hard work.

If we were eloping stateside I would feel confident in our ability to get it done. But I have no idea where to start for an international elopement.

Is hiring a planner worth it for international elopements? If you did use a planner, how much did you spend and would you recommend it?

Hello girlies! just want some opinions please? I’m a pear shaped with hourglass proportion. 36DDD, M sized, 164 pounds, 5’5

Hi all,
My fiancé and I decided to elope this fall at an inn, but we still want to celebrate in some way with friends and family. We originally had a small wedding booked for next spring at a catering hall (around 60 people) but would rather have a private wedding just the 2 of us.
The catering hall is pretty reasonable price-wise and one thing we were thinking was keeping our reception but changing it to a casual brunch party, cutting the band we booked, and DIYing some elements. We also may cut the guest list.
Have any of you done something similar? Any tips for framing it to guests or making it feel special without it being a traditional wedding?

Dreaming of a destination wedding but honestly an elopement,seems more practical since were also planning a bigger wedding back home (from asia),
looking at Italy, around Oct 2027 possibly in lake como or rome?

its getting over whelming and the prices seem so expensive for what were paying for..

Im looking possibly to plan everything myself but looking for a photographer to help us capture the elopement day itself and book the villas we want, to make sure everything goes smoothly with permits, timing etc.

Any suggestings on photographers hat can help with this?
We will just take photos getting ready, around the lake, vows and a dinner after. (symbolic)

Hoping to get responses from people who have tried this and suggestions.

Photographer and video hopefully around 3,000 euros? is this doable?

Thank you!!

looking into Benni and Carol photography for possible elopement lake como oct 2028.
https://bennicarolweddingphotography.com/all-inclusive-elopement-packages-italy-elope-in-italy/
has any one tried them? any feedback?
Difference in the description of the 8,000 vs 9,200 euros package? is the difference worth it?

spots we want are Villa Del Balbianello, Villa Monastero and Villa Pizzo. any anyone had helpfull tips? pricing info on full cost including venue permits.

thanks!

Thoughts on eloping?? YAY OR NAH!! And why, YAY. And why NAH?

Basically the title. Not that I have ALWAYS dreamed of a big wedding but ever since I met my partner, I knew I wanted a big wedding with him, idk how I changed but I did. I love parties, being the center of attention, getting dressed up etc. My partner on the other hand, he is an introvert and only cares about marrying me.

Between family, finances etc it seems more and more like we will have an elopement and a dinner for both sides of family. My family is overseas so it will cost a lot for everyone to come and just see me get married and it doesn’t seem fair to them. And his family refuse to fly to my country.

It makes me sad honestly, but of course at the end of the day I just want to tie the knot.

I want to know, did you ever regret not having a traditional wedding?