Anyone eloped?

[Aimz]

DH and I eloped in September last year to the Greek Islands! Well we planned to elope on our own but ended up taking 30 family and friends with us! It's was INCREDIBLE to say the least and an absolute dream.

In the end it cost the same as what a big wedding here would have cost.

To get around the marriage certificate thing and to avoid hefty translation and apostle stamp costs, we opted to have a courthouse ceremony just before we left the country. This meant our legal marriage was in Australia and our ceremony on Santorini was symbolic. Our guests didn't even know the difference as we didn't feel the need to mention it. It was just a piece of paper anyway!

[Tinsel]

DH and I got married in Scotland in 2005 and it was fantastic. I had tried to organise a wedding with our families here but it got so complicated (who's talking to who, where can we sit them, do we have to invite such and such and my relationship with my family was quite fractured at the time). We told both sides that we were getting married in Scotland and most of them were fine with it. We were really lucky to have friends based in London that travelled up to Scotland and one friend travelled from here and another couple made a detour on their travels. We wanted to spend the money on a trip to Europe and it worked out really well. Our Scottish wedding certificate is gorgeous. Gosh, I just rambled a bit didn't I.

I learnt how to do my wedding makeup before I left and I foolishly thought that I could book a hairdresser for the day but luckily a friend knew a few hair tricks and they did it for me. Our groom took the majority of our wonderful photos.

Your destinations sound wonderful and I'm sure it will be absolutely perfect.

[*Ang*]

Two sets of our good friends have eloped in the past couple of years - one in Sydney and the other in the Gold Coast. Both sets ended up having problems with their families getting extremely upset and offended that they weren't there to help celebrate it. One brides brother was particulary upset and offended as he had always hoped to one day walk her down the aisle as their father had passed away.

I know it is your big day but I think you just need to keep in mind that not everyone will be happy about it.

[AnyDream]

Yes we eloped (first time). You will still need to lodge the intent to marry document a month before you proceed and you need to think about who your witnesses will be (it may mean swearing a good friend or sibling to secrecy). We held a wedding ceremony in our church and a simple reception with friends and family two years later (to the day) when circumstances allowed us to celebrate more fully.

At the end of the day it's about the sacred promise you make to each other. It's nice to celebrate but I think a lot people get caught up in all the hoohaa when marriage was never meant to be about that. I do think it's important to mark the occasion with family and friends in some way but that can just as easily be a week later when you get home from your "holiday" in Broome.

ETA:

you just need to keep in mind that not everyone will be happy about it.

I think it's also true that there WILL be moments throughout the planning of a regular wedding when family members get just as upset over various issues. It's YOUR wedding, you do what you want, it's their job to love you enough to suck it up.

[Gecko]

Hi ,

My DH and i kind of eloped this May we went and got married in Europe. I only told my Mum Dad my brother and my Grandmother as the all live in Austria were we got married. I tried to do the right thing and invited my part of the family, as i have left home quite early and i am living here in Australia now ,with my husband so my mum already misses out on a big part of my life.
The wedding was great and its quite inexpensive, when i got back and wanted to ?register? my marriage here in Australia i was told that it can?t be done which is quite upsetting as it would mean that my DH could just get married again in Australia ??? odd , however after getting my overseas marriage certificate translated ? i was finally able to at least change all my bank acc driving licence and so forth so its all good now...
Back to my story - When we got back home and broke the news to DH family they were quite sad as they also wanted to be part of it ? so we decided now to have a wedding vows renewal in 2010 which is coincidently also our 10 year anniversary and if things go well we might be a mum & dad by then and will do it all in one and have the bub?s christening at the same time...this time round, we will invite close friends and family, but again fly away ( keeps the guest list small) we will be going to the White Sundays /Hamilton Island they have some fantastic packages there and we just tell the people we invite to just bring themself rather than a present. So all in all it will be a WIN WIN situation

[Isadora]

Thanks everyone for your input.

Muppity - Your wedding day sounds exactly like what I want, simple and romantic! How beautiful.

Amysarah - You lucky girl, what an awesome wedding! Wish I had the money to do something like that.

Gecko - Thats what I am worried about & thats why I want to marry in Aus. Your wedding day sounds like it was lovely.

I'm going to look into it a bit further girls, I had my heart set on Broome but the time of yr we want to marry is their monsoon season & also the price of accommodation in Broome is through the roof!! Back to the drawing board lol

[AnyDream]

MM the monsoon is mostly over by March...cable beach is lovely and I'm sure they would organise a wet weather contingency for you in a hurry!

[Megan]

MM, one thing I realised with our wedding in Vanuatu is that you can never predict the weather! We went in the dry season so there should have been no rain. The first three days were warm and dry - perfect weather. Well, not only did we get rain on our wedding day but we woke up to a cyclone warning!! lol It ended up being a wet windy day (but at least it was still warm) and we had to move the ceremony inside from the beach, but it all turned out well in the end anyway. The whole thing had been so stress free I wasn't going to let a little cyclone stress me out at the last minute!!