The Beginning Stages

I mentioned that we had a semi planned elopement in this post and am excited to dive a bit deeper into that. We decided at the end of March that we wanted to move. With that came the idea to elope before we left NY.

By this time we had been together in excess of 10 years so the time felt about right. After talking about it, we wanted our moms and closest friends to be in attendance. By deciding on this, it was only logical to host the event before we moved.

I consider this a semi planned elopement because we didn’t just pack up and go to a courthouse one day. There was about a month of planning and outlining details.

Telling Everyone

We made our own invitations at home and filled in the date and time. We also amusingly noted that attendance was pretty much mandatory. Since it was a small group (5 guests to be exact) we knew we could count on everyone to be there. The invitations were sent out at the end of April with the date of the event being May 25th.

Everyone was super excited – they’ve all known us through our relationship and were the dearest people to us.

After those were sent out it was time to figure out some other details.

My now husband loves to cook and opted to make our wedding cake. He did test cakes to get the taste and texture just right. I should note that I was dairy and gluten free at the time so it was kind of an experiment.

Now clothes. I got my dress off of Amazon for around a $100. I know – risky. When it came it was a bit long but fit well and I was super happy with the purchase. I just rolled up the bottom a bit under my jeweled belt and was good to go. I also got a headband off of Poshmark and shoes from 5 Below. That was about all I needed. I did my hair myself and my husband funnily enough helped with my makeup. The only thing I got done were my nails – I wanted them done nicely for pictures.

My husband got the wedding bands and worked with the jeweler on my wedding ring. He also got everything in line that he needed in terms of a tux and shoes which was simple.

Plans For The Day Of

Before the ceremony, I wanted to take pictures of just us at one of our favorite local parks. Pictures were important to me but I didn’t want to hold up the day. We went the day of to a place called Halls Pond and took pictures together. It was a beautiful day and later on I made a photo album with these pictures.

We wanted to do something with the guests after the ceremony so we took some time thinking on that. As a couple we love Escape Rooms and thought that would be a good idea to incorporate. After everything came together in terms of logistics and times – we settled on: the ceremony, eating at our favorite Thai place (with the cake that my husband made), and then off to an escape room that was Mardi Gras themed. Before the Escape Room, we changed into comfier clothes too. Bride and Groom shirts to be exact.

After the Escape Room (which we got out of!), we took some victory pictures and the older members of the part went home while our friends and us went to a local bar that we frequented. We had drinks, played pool and darts, ate food, and played songs on the juke box. The first song I played was Calling You by Blue October – our song.

Concluding Thoughts

I am absolutely Team Elopement. I think fancy weddings are honestly a waste of money and would not want to be the center of attention like that. For us, this was exactly what we wanted and we were fortunate enough to be able to do most of it ourselves and have the people that we wanted to be there in attendance. It was a great, care free day and that is honestly everything I could have asked for in my “big” day.

If you want to elope – you can. 1000% doable as long as you consider what you and your future spouse want. Don’t veer from that and it’ll be the perfect day.

I hope this helped explain how we executed a semi planned elopement and encouraged those who are considering this route.

Shameless Plug

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