Aside from the number of guests, an elopement ceremony can be as different or as similar to a traditional wedding ceremony as you want it to be. This is because almost EVERYTHING about both is entirely optional. Here’s a breakdown of some potential differences and similarities to ponder…

Some couples absolutely choose to elope because it’s more realistic for them financially. But many of our couples choose to elope not because they wouldn’t be able fund a larger-scale wedding if they really wanted to, but because they’d rather spend that money on something else instead. We thought we’d share just a thing or two that you might like to spend those pennies on if you were in this boat and opted for an elopement instead of a wedding…

I adore personalised vows, never more so than in elopement ceremonies, and I give all our Elsewhere couples access to a comprehensive vow-writing guide to help them piece together their own beautiful words. But if I can give just one key tip off the bat, one thing that has arguably stood out most among the hundreds vows I’ve read as a celebrant to date, it’s this: Think about the small details. The specific actions. The little things, because as we know, the little things are actually often the biggest things.

Please don’t get me wrong – I love a full-scale, all the bells and whistles, love-fest of a wedding. And having a crowd is how most people truly prefer to celebrate. But you can bet I (we) say an equally emphatic “yes” if a couple asks us to instead join them on a trip, much like they took those six months or three years or a decade ago for one unexpectedly memorable weekend together. You can bet we help them tie the knot on a cliff edge or pretty beach or obscure bushland or random alleyway, wherever they originally shared that incredibly good time. Such is the flexibility and freedom of eloping.

Many of the couples I marry have a ‘special’ movie that’s ‘theirs’. Or if not a movie, perhaps a TV show. Perhaps a band. Very often, a song. Perhaps it’s some form of art that has sentimental value for a couple – a mutual memory embedded in that flick, show, or tune. And when that’s the case, I LOVE to have some fun with the ‘shared love’ that they’ve shared with me.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: to us, an elopement is super duper small. Super duper intimate. Super duper spesh. None of this “we’re ‘eloping’… with 40 of our nearest and dearest” rubbish. That’s a small wedding in our eyes. A ‘micro-wedding’ at best. But not an elopement. An elopement is stripped right back, and for our packages that comes with a very intentional limit of 10 guests at the max. But lots of couples are choosing to elope with even less. Lots of couples are toying with the idea of none! And gee whiz do we love this. There are, however, a couple of legal things to consider that you may or may not have thought about…