What is an Elopement Ceremony?
An elopement is a wedding that is 100% focused on your love story. But what does that actually mean when it comes to your elopement ceremony? At its core, an elopement is an intimate marriage ceremony that celebrates love. A ceremony that isn’t rushed, constricted, or “moved along” in order to make room for the next wedding scheduled behind it. So how do you make that happen?
What is an elopement ceremony, for you?
Keeping in mind that an elopement is an intimate celebration of your love story. What will an elopement ceremony look like for you? Your wedding day is the culmination of everything you’ve experienced together up to this point. You’ve both made the decision to step into this union together and honor all of the ups, downs, and transformations that you’ve experienced. Your elopement wedding ceremony will be a celebration of your life together so far. This means there is no room for a copy-and-paste wedding experience.
What are the elements of an amazing elopement ceremony?
You might be used to attending (and hating) big overblow traditional weddings. Maybe you even sat through one and quietly made internal notes about how you could never. Because an elopement is a representation of the love that you and your partner share, you have the flexibility to design a ceremony around your love story. Great, right? But you are skipping the trad wedding because you want more out of your wedding experience. So how can you look at your elopement wedding ceremony and take it to the next level? We’ll tell you.
- Personal Vows
Not really a new concept when it comes to weddings, we know. But, we will say this, there is nothing quite like writing personal vows to express how you really feel to your person.
Think about this, the new trend in weddings is to exchange personal vows during a first look, before the couple gets to their actual wedding ceremony.
Do you ever wonder why that is? You won’t have to worry about hundreds of guests looking on (judging) while you pour your heart out to your partner because your elopement will be an intimate experience. The pressure is off, allowing you the room to create an epic and personal ceremony.
- Include Loved Ones
You might already have the general idea of wanting to include your baby, small children, or family members in your wedding ceremony. Amazing way to make things truly personal by the way. But you need some guidance on how to make it happen, or at least, some basic ideas and options.
A skilled elopement planner will be able to provide you with feedback on how to make your wedding ceremony a family affair. Whether it’s a unique unity ceremony, a ring warming, or something completely new and customized.
An experienced elopement planner already knows why you’ve chosen this wedding experience, and they can guide you through the process of what feels most authentic to you when it comes to including family members in your ceremony.
- Officiant
Your intimate elopement ceremony will need an officiant who sounds like one of your best friends. Someone who understands your story so deeply that they convey it to your guests (if you’re inviting guests) in a way that will have them scratching their heads wondering if they know your officiant from somewhere. There’s no room for impersonal moments and internet scripts. So your elopement officiant should be someone who has dedicated their life’s work to officiating weddings and gets that this is a celebration of who you both are, together.
What makes a ceremony ‘successful’?
Aside from the part where you are pronounced married and seal your union with a kiss (which is inevitable) what determines that your elopement ceremony was successful? Let’s say you’ve taken all three of the above elements into consideration when planning your ceremony, but you still want more. After all, this is why you chose to elope, to begin with. You were not going to settle with being forced into a church by your parents, and you wanted a wedding that focused on you and your partner, not on feeding 200 guests.
How can you take things a step further to ensure that this sought-after experience, the one you chased for its authenticity, turns out to be everything you imagined, and more? We’ve seen a few (ok, a lot) of elopement weddings around here, and no matter what was important to the couple (and believe us, it’s different for everyone) there are a few factors that determine an elopement ceremony’s success.
- An elopement ceremony is one that integrates & resonates with your own personal beliefs and values as a couple.
- Your ceremony evokes feeling and connection between the two of you, but also your guests.
- You feel good about the officiant you found. They are someone who gets it and can hold true to all the emotions that bubble up during your ceremony.
- Your ceremony is filled with joyous laughter. You smiled so hard your cheeks hurt, and there might even be a few happy tears thrown in the mix
- Your elopement ceremony created a timeless feeling, where you were both lost in the moment of becoming officially married.
Now that you know what your elopement ceremony will feel like, what about the other aspects that define a modern elopement? If you need more information on navigating the ins and outs of what makes a modern elopement, check out our full guide.
