Guests: do we need them?

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 6 guests for our ‘Forest’ package or 15 for our ‘Anywhere’ option.

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…

For your elopement marriage ceremony to be legal in Australia, there must be two witnesses in attendance. These two people must be over the age of 18 and understand spoken English. They will also be required to sign your marriage certificates.

However, this doesn’t necessarily mean you have to invite two guests as Ryal (photographer) can act as one of your witnesses. Unfortunately Kahani (celebrant) cannot act as celebrant and witness for the same ceremony.

We’ve even had more random witnesses such as an AirBnB host, or cafe staff we asked ahead of time for a cafe-based elopement, or a make-up artist who stuck around for the ceremony. What a legend.

There’s also the option to do the legal wording and signing for which the witnesses are required (3 min total) slightly separate to the rest of your ceremony if that was logistically preferable.

In sum: if you’re keen to keep your elopement just for you two (or with your children but the children aren’t old enough to be witnesses!), just ask. We’ll toss around ideas together.


Words by Kahani Motiani - resident celebrant for all of Elsewhere’s elopements.