Lets Talk About Planning to Elope

Coming up on our 2 year anniversary I thought I would talk about why we eloped two years ago and the planning that went into it.

When it came down to why we eloped, we had a few reasons:

• Plain and simple – we just wanted to be married. Though we couldn’t physically be together like we wanted, thanks to Mike being stationed over 1,000+ miles away, I think we both just wanted that spiritual closeness and structure that marriage signifies. Neither of us wanted to wait around to plan a ceremony in order to have that. We were constantly waiting; every day just waiting to talk to each other on the phone, waiting to see each other next, waiting in airports for our flights, waiting to move, waiting waiting waiting.. we were over it. 
• From the very beginning our relationship it was about us and only us. We didn’t involve family and friends into the inner-workings of what made us Mike and Syd. So that being said, having a ceremony fell right in line with that theme. Ceremonies easily turn into people-pleasing your crowd, then you blink and the whole thing is over and the bride and groom are left exhausted and broke. Ultimately, getting married was about us and we didn’t want anyone or anything taking away from that. I wanted to be lost in the moment with him, not worried about pulling off the perfect wedding or getting pictures with great-aunt so and so..
• For me personally, I had this overwhelming desire to make this moment 100% authentic. I wanted a dress that screamed Sydney, and a black whimsical dress is exactly that. Which easily circles back to not wanting a ceremony.. could you imagine the look of horror on my family’s face when I told them I was ditching the traditional white gown for a black one? I wanted certain things and I only wanted my husband’s opinion on those things. If you didn’t know, I come from a very outspoken opinionated family. I had no desire to be given their opinions left and right on what colors would be better, what dress would be better, the flowers, etc. etc.
• Lastly, we have family all over the place. If we got married in California there would be a large portion of my family and friends unable to attend and if we got married in Kansas there was a large majority of his family and friends that couldn’t travel and attend. There were going to be hurt feelings either way.

So if it isn’t obvious, we eliminated having a ceremony because we had no desire to try and make anyone else, other than each other, happy on OUR DAY.

Ultimately, if you are considering eloping, you have to determine your why and be okay with that decision. That’s my biggest piece of advice when I share about my experience.

I have also been asked several times if its worth it, how to do it, and so on. Once you decide on your “why” and you feel comfortable with that decision, you can jump into planning.

For me, planning was just sitting down and writing out what mattered to me outside of marrying my bestfriend. Mike wasn’t picky about the ceremony at all, but if he had suggested something I definitely would have worked that in. The beauty of eloping is we could do whatever we wanted and nothing had to make sense to anyone else.

So my big “must-haves” were:

• Documenting it (photographer and videographer)
• Flowers
• My dress
• Making it personal

We ended up spending majority of our budget on documenting the moment. Even though we didn’t invite anyone, we knew we wanted to eventually share the moment, as well as always be able to look back at it for ourselves.

For everything else, I just planned based off of what “felt right”. I looked at flowers and I picked based off of what felt the best and for the dress I simply knew I wanted black because I like black. We picked the location based off of the recommendation of the photographer and that’s the end of the planning.

I haven’t regretted not having a ceremony AT ALL. And I still watch our wedding video frequently.

I can’t believe we are already coming up on our 2 year anniversary, it has flown by, and I am so excited to share my anniversary post , so stay tuned for that!

So there ya have it. Here’s a link to our “I Do” story as well as photos and the wedding video. Enjoy!

XO,
Sydney!