Is anyone eloping?

I totally understand, the venue hunt can turn into a blur of numbers, and packages and get very overwhelming. I made an excel sheet to track what each location included in the cost.

In the end I found my restaurant to be cost effective, because we don't need much decor for it. They take care of a lot of the details too....search out a place with wedding experience and a dedicated coordinator! The rentals and caterers and decor did add up fast for other locations, and didn't make sense for the cocktail style party.

You'll find what works for you- don't let it frustrate you. Enjoy the struggle

Restaurants definitely seem to be an expensive way to go! Everywhere I've looked seem to be quite pricy, but I'm thinking by the time I rented a place and then got it catered and whatnot, the price might be up there anyway. it's tough!

Honestly I've contacted so many venues about pricing I feel a bit woozy. We looked into goingtothechapel and popupweddings to perhaps do our ceremony and then have been looking at restaurants and other venues, such as the fort langley community hall or the roedde house museum or even the hr macmillan space centre to host the reception. I'm torn on what direction to go and keep changing my mind, honestly!

It doesn't work out to be more cost effective overall by much, because we are going pretty heavy on apps (in case anyone doesn't eat dinner) and having an open bar, but it does suit us better to have a more intimate dinner and ceremony.

Have you looked into venues or though of any "must have" ideas for your wedding?

This is exactly what I want to do! Thank you so much, this has been super super helpful!!

Hey Megan!

Sorry I am late to the party on this! Everything you have expressed resonates with me! I hated the idea of a large "public" ceremony (would rather die), so I did pretty much exactly what you described. I think of it as "lite" elopement". This will be a long post, so feel free to stop reading at any point. First I'll cover what we are doing, and then I'll answer your specific questions

We are having our ceremony at 2pm, in a public park, and will have only our parents, siblings and grandmothers present (well an aunt and uncle too, representing FH's mother who has passed). Our signing witnesses are my sister and her husband, and our "officiant" is my future brother in law-he will also have a date. We have a legal offciant who will be present, just to take care of the legal parts. If we want to be technical, there will be 2 photogarphers too! Total: 15 people, including vendors.

We will do family pictures, and then send our family to have some snacks at a restaurant we have booked while we do a photo session. We will then meet everyone at the restaurant and have a nice dinner, in a private room at the restaurant. We will miss the apps, but such is life.

After dinner we are going to a different restaurant for a "reception", where we are inviting about 100 people. We have booked the private floor, and will begin this at 7:30pm. No dinner, just lots of apps and booze. We have a DJ for dancing and will serve cake, and have a late night menu as well. It was important for us to have two seperate resaurants, because I would HATE to be finishing dinner, and have reception guests arrive early, and see that we ate without them, and not feel "important" enough. We are being very specific on our invites by saying we are having a private ceremony, and inviting guests to join us later to celebrate our marriage.

As for your questions:

Did you plan your elopement and your reception/party close together or far apart? The locations are all within a 5 km radius. We are taking care of transportation for the core group, and will have transport info for receptions guests going to a hotel etc. Time wise, they are happening the same day, just spaced out a bit more than normal.

If you invited close family to your elopment, did you feel it was asking a lot for them to come more then one day (if they are travelling, especially)? I can't speak to this, as we are doing both in one day. I do expect some travelling relatives to decline attendance because they are only invited to the party. Unfortunate, but I accept this.

Did you encounter people being upset that you didn't invite them to the ceremony? Yup. some friends have expressed disappointment, but have since gotten over it. I'm not sure yet how aunts and uncles feel, but it is what it is....the ceremony is for us, and will be what we want. The sweet party after is for everyone else. I find that just asking people to please respect our wishes, and explaining that we really just wanted an intimate, short and sweet ceremony tends to settle things pretty fast. It isn't about not loving our family and friends, it is just about wanting privacy during a very special moment.

Did you play photos or video from your wedding at the reception/party? Was this easy to do even if you had them close together? We did consider this- but the ceremony being the same day, the logistics were just too silly, and would have made a lot of work for our photographer. He is great and would probably do it, but we decided not to ask. We will include a couple of photos with our Thank You cards, and will be sure to share photos with anyone who is interested.

tl;dr: DO IT

I hope this helps! Please feel free to reach out if you want to chat about this more, or have other questions I am an open book!

Happy Planning

Hi Megan! Welcome to the community! I think it's a great idea to have an intimate wedding if you want to keep things simple. The big question around elopement wedding is usually the secret that's around it...

Here's another discussion you can have a look at for input:

Would you have an elopement wedding?

You can also choose to have an intimate destination wedding where only a few people could come. I think you'll like these discussions from other brides who are having one:

Who is having a destination wedding?

Destination wedding lots of guests!

What are your thoughts? Elopement or destination wedding?

My fiance and I are eloping! We have about 18 guests which include our 2 kids and our immediate family. I was fortunate enough to have a restaurant contact me as a reception venue and they also are allowing us to have our ceremony there! Dont stress out to much about it people will always get upset but hey its your wedding and you want a small elopement go for it!

He wanted to have a small amount of family there (his mom,dad, brothers and grandma). We're both not the kind to enjoy being in the spotlight so I think it's a good fit. The reception will be just a big celebration

I don't have any experience with elopements but I wish you luck! How does your fiance feel about eloping? It seems like it can make for a really intimate wedding.

Hey Megan,

Elopements are so intimate and romantic! Melissa is doing a small ceremony and a larger reception/party later in the day, I'm sure she will be on later (or in the next few days) and would love to answer your questions!

The only advice I can offer for you is that people will ALWAYS be upset that they aren't invited to the ceremony (even with my 85 person guest list). There is always a line and there will always be someone that it on the other side of that line. I think the trick is to keep the ceremony guest list to immediate family only, that way you don't look like you're cherry picking certain relatives or friends