# Elope; Good or bad?



## oties101 (Dec 24, 2008)

I'm just curious if anyone here eloped, and if they did, if they regret it. Me and my fiance are considering going to Florida, getting married on the beach, and having the honeymoon of our dreams, while focusing on each other solely for the whole event. I feel it would just add unneccesary stress to our lives to plan a huge wedding trying to make everyone happy. 

Anyone have any opinions/advice? We're on an extremely limited budget, the whole ordeal would have to be under 6k, which is impossible with the size of our families. I'm greek, and if we invited JUST the family that were deemed necessary, we'd already have over 100 guests.


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## Chris H. (Jan 27, 2007)

This may not work for you, but my wife and I where thinking of eloping. We had a lot going on at the time and didn't want to have a formal wedding.

We were pretty close to doing it, when someone made the suggestion, "why don't you just invite your immediate family out to dinner and surprise them by getting married!" My wife and I talked about it and thought it was a great idea.

Since we were both graduating from grad school at the same time, we invited them all to a graduation dinner at a nice restaurant here in New Orleans. Little did they know, but we had also arranged for a priest to show up and marry us. We got married on a balcony at that restaurant overlooking the Mississippi River. 

We managed to surprise the hell out of all of them, even some of the people in the restaurant were surprised. It couldn't have gone any better, and I'd do it all over again if I had the choice. There was really no downside. All of our family new what was going on with us at the time and understood why we made the decision we made. There's no way we could have handled the stress of planning a wedding, and they were happy that they got to be part of it that way.


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## oties101 (Dec 24, 2008)

That is SO romantic and adorable. That's a great idea, and definately something for me to keep in mind. If there were any restaurants in the area that I'd consider getting married at/in, haha. Though, if I managed to trick them into going to Chicago, it would definately be something I'd do. 

Personally, however, the two of us are considering running off because we want the day to be about the two of us and no one else. I've spent my entire life being told what to do by family members, why spend the start of my married life the same way? Since me and my fiance come from similar, very pushy, families, we think it might be easier to exclude them so we can have the wedding/honeymoon of our dreams.


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## GPR (Jan 3, 2009)

Eloping or not depends solely on the people involved, no one else.

You have to decide what's more important to you. Some people hold different values when it comes to marriage. It was very important for me to share my day with my family. So eloping was not for me. But it may be for you. As long as the two of you are on board, go for it. 

I've known a lot of people that will get married in the Caribbean or Vegas or something with just the two of them, or just the two of them with the very immediate family (parents and siblings only) and then will hold a pseudo reception a week or two later as a celebration with everyone else. Usually it's a lot less formal and smaller (read: cheaper) than your typical wedding reception, but it's still gets to celebrate your union....... plus, you can still get people to bring presents :smthumbup:


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## Blanca (Jul 25, 2008)

My H and I eloped. we have a complicated immediate family and I wanted that day to just be about my H and I. Plus I hate spending money. I dont regret it at all.


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