10 Reasons to Elope on Your Wedding Day
Reasons to Elope
Maybe you’ve been thinking about it for a long time. Or, maybe wedding planning got the best of you. If at some point you turned to your partner and asked “should we elope?” this guide is for you!
10 Reasons to Elope on Your Wedding Day
Making the decision to let go of expectations and stop letting outside pressure and old traditions dictate how your wedding day goes is scary. If you’re considering eloping, here are 10 reasons to elope and signs that it’s right for you!
ONE | You Don’t Want to Plan a Wedding
A lot of people ask their partner, “should we elope?” because they realize a few things. The first is that wedding planning is incredibly stressful. I mean, seating charts, color schemes, and guest lists just aren’t their thing. Secondly, months (or even years) into their engagement they haven’t started planning their wedding. The thought of it is just too overwhelming.
If you’re in either one of these boats, you aren’t alone! The stress of wedding planning is one of the biggest reasons couples choose to elope. While an elopement definitely requires some planning. When you aren’t worried about 100 guests or stressing about what everyone else wants, it’s actually fun!
TWO | You Want Your Wedding to Be About You
So often, it seems like weddings become about everyone but the couple! There’s pressure from family, friends, and the wedding industry that says weddings should look a certain way. But here’s the truth - it’s your wedding day!
And your wedding day should be everything you want, and it shouldn’t be anything you don’t want. You deserve to actually enjoy the day you get married. Together, you deserve an experience that’s focused on what makes the two of you happy, and how you want to begin your marriage.
THREE | You Don’t Like Attention
A lot of couples feel absolute dread and existential horror when they realize they’re going to have to read their vows in front of an audience. Not only that but there are going to be eyes on them ALL DAY LONG.
It’s totally understandable to be nervous about being the center of attention all day. Whether you’re an introvert, have a little bit of stage fright, or just aren’t that into being the star of the show, if you’re asking “should we elope?” because you realize you don’t want all that pressure, that’s a great reason to elope!
FOUR | You Want to Get Married Outside
With a traditional wedding, you’re limited to traditional venues. But a big sign that eloping is right for you is if you’re an outdoorsy couple who wants to tie the knot in nature! You don’t have to do any intense hikes to get married outdoors. However, eloping gives you so much more freedom in choosing where you get married. You can pick a place that reflects the two of you!
FIVE | You Care About the Environment
According to The Green Bride Guide, the average wedding produces 400 pounds of garbage and 63 tons of CO2. Those are pretty mind-boggling numbers! If you’re concerned about the environmental impact of a big wedding, that’s a pretty great sign that you should elope instead.
Eloping is much more sustainable and better for the planet. Elopements don’t have single-use decorations, a big electricity-sucking venue, dinners for 200, and they don’t have nearly as much waste.
SIX | You Want to Spend Money on Experiences
And speaking of less waste, another great reason to elope is that instead of spending your money on things - like decorations, and items you’ll never use again. Instead, you get to spend your money on experiences and adventures! That can mean renting a houseboat for you and a few of your closest friends, it can mean taking a flight to Iceland to tie the knot, it can mean a lakeside picnic for the two of you… The experience you have on your elopement day can be absolutely anything you want. Choosing to invest in those memories is one of the main reasons to elope!
SEVEN | You Want to Spend Time Together
Oddly enough, during a traditional wedding, the couple often barely gets to spend any time together! They get ready separately, see each other for the ceremony and for photos, and then it seems like they’re so busy making sure they say hello to everyone and checking that things are running smoothly, that they barely get any time to themselves. A lot of couples even say that they barely remember their wedding day, because it all went by so fast they didn’t have time to really enjoy the moment.
Elopements are all about changing that - shifting the focus of your wedding day from being about everyone else to being about the two of you. An elopement celebrates your love story, and there’s no better way to be present with each other, spend time together, and kick off the beginning of your marriage than with a day that’s entirely about being together and doing what feels right to you.
EIGHT | You Want Something Unique
A big reason that couples often wonder, “should we elope?” is that they realize that a big wedding just doesn’t feel like them. The wedding industry has created a mold for the way weddings are “supposed to be,” and it feels like there’s so much pressure to do it the way everyone else does, and to throw a party that’s more about people pleasing and fitting than mold than it is about celebrating the start of your marriage.
Wanting something different, something unique, is a sign that eloping is right for you. Elopement gives you so much more freedom to decide what feels right and to think about what you actually want from your wedding day.
NINE | You Want to Avoid Drama
The truth is that sometimes, weddings can bring out the worst in people. And for couples who have strained relationships with their family, weddings can be an unfortunate reminder of all of that - which is definitely not what you want to be thinking about on the best day of your life.
While you can (and many couples do) invite family and friends to your elopement, if you want a “just us” experience or you want to avoid any drama that might come from not inviting someone to your wedding, that’s definitely a good reason to elope.
TEN | You Want Amazing Wedding Photos
Take it from someone who almost didn’t hire a photographer for her wedding (that’s me) - the photos I have from that day mean the world to me.
And while eloping means your wedding photos will likely be of gorgeous scenery and you’ll look pretty dang amazing in front of the mountains, beaches, forests, waterfalls, deserts, or whatever landscapes you’ll see, that’s actually not what it’s about - at all.
Good photos are about capturing the experience, and they’re about capturing how you feel. I love my wedding photos because they show me and my best-friend-now-husband, in our favorite place in the world, surrounded by the people we love most. They show us having fun, getting wild, and enjoying our wedding day.
That’s what elopement photography is - it’s not posed photos and fake smiles, it’s authentic moments, captured on film (well, on a memory card) for you to look back on, so you can relive the story of this magical, incredible day.
READY TO ELOPE?
