(Closed) Brides who ended up having a wedding instead of eloping – was it worth it?

• lim3
• 5 years ago

• Wedding: May 2014

• KC-2722
• 5 years ago

• Wedding: September 2014

I’m not that into the whole traditional wedding thing and toyed with the idea of eloping.. We ultimately decided not to because not only do we vacation together (alone) all the time, we’re not having children and have our whole lives to be just the two of us.. Surrounding ourselves with our families and closest friends seemed like the best way to celebrate.

It was worth it. We paid for everything ourselves so there was no unnecessary drama, no unwanted opinions, no bending over backwards to meet peoples needs.. We ended up with a wedding that was very much the two of us and everytime I think about it I get giddy inside. It was truly perfect and I don’t regret it for a second.

• sassy411
• 5 years ago

• Wedding: City, State

We really wanted to do a Christmas Eve elopement at one of the nicer chapels in Vegas.  But, I thought it was important to include Dh’s elderly mother.  So we did a very small & intimate wedding instead.

My Mother-In-Law just passed a few days ago, so in retrospect, I’m glad she was able to come to our wedding.

• futuremrsjackson25
• 5 years ago

We just cancelled our wedding and plan on eloping… it was SO much drama. Fiance comes from a blended family that doesn’t get along and can not communicate. It was too much drama for me so we cancelled it and are going to take a handful of family members with us and get married in the snow! 🙂 we even get to keep our photographer which was the biggie for me! I feel so relaxed about the wedding now, it just feels right!

• craigslistgirl
• 5 years ago

We had preplanned a private ceremony followed by a ~50 guest celebration a few months later. The celebration was much more stressful, while the private ceremony let us truly cherish our union to each other. Of course, it wasn’t actually my idea to have the celebration part (DH wanted it), but I suppose it’s good that we had so I’m not left wondering what if. 

• luckyshot
• 5 years ago

• Wedding: June 2014

I wanted to elope right up until the day of my wedding. I planned a wedding for 200 guests pretty much on my own, and hated every minute of it! I am not into that sort of thing. I am also pretty introverted, and was stressed about the amount of people who would be focused on me, and I worried about everything going right on the day. I knew that our parents and extended families would be very sad and disappointed if we eloped, and we are practicing Ukrainian Orthodox, so we wanted to be married in our church, so in the end we decided to go through with the big wedding, despite my reservations.

My wedding day turned out to be the best day of my life (so far). Everything went so smoothly, and it was so much fun. I got to marry my best friend, and celebrate with all our family and friends. All of my planning and hard work paid off, not only did my husband and I have a wonderful day, but our guests did too. It was just so great to see everyone and celebrate with them, it was so worth all the stress and definitely worth the expense. I would do it all over again in a heartbeat. 

• geishagirl
• 5 years ago

I’ve been married twice, had a full wedding in my early twenties and eloped in my early thirties. Truthfully eloping was preferable but that may just be me, I never was a party person. The only things I regret were getting to pick out the huge dress and the slighted feelings from people who expected a big event and were disappointed by not getting to participate.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 5 months ago by  geishagirl.

• chiweeniemommy
• 5 years ago

• Wedding: July 2015

We thought about eloping someplace tropical, but there were a few people (certain family members, a few close friends) I really would have missed being there.  So we did have a wedding, albeit a very casual and non traditional one, and I’m really glad we did (and so is he).

My recap is posted here:

Casual NC Mountain Weekend Wedding Celebration (pic heavy)

• MissJulianna
• 5 years ago

• Wedding: September 2014

The second we got engaged they lost their minds. All of a sudden they were laying on the guilt about them and our grandparents not being there, etc.. It was a big mess because I basically had to reimagine my entire day AND plan an wedding. While I was intitially annoyed, I think I deep down knew they would do this and I guess they were smart not to bother me about it til we were engaged LOL. In the long run, I wanted everyone to be happy and if I had to have a wedding to make our families happy, I was willing to do that.

We ended up having a huge wedding and honestly, I wouldn’t change it for the world now. I think that had I eloped I would have been very happy with that choice too, but nothing can take away the day we had. We also had a small little Polynesian ceremony just the two of us in Bora Bora during one of our honeymoon stops, so I technically did get both, but I would have been happy with just my wedding. 🙂

• This reply was modified 5 years, 5 months ago by  MissJulianna.
• This reply was modified 5 years, 5 months ago by  MissJulianna.