While working as a planner doing full scale and high design weddings, we saw elopements really begin becoming a more popular choice with couples around 2015. We were getting more and more requests for smaller weddings of under 30 guests that still wanted to have the beautiful wedding experience with a planner, but without many of the traditional elements and the large guest count. As a long time wedding planner, this made sense to me as that is how I would get married, go to an amazing destination with 25 of my closest friends and have the epic experience without the headache.

It was interesting the reasons we were seeing for couples embracing this new trend; we saw couples who began planning large weddings and got so overwhelmed that they cancelled their weddings and chose to elope instead. We had multiple couples who had lost one or more of their parents and just didn’t see the need for a big wedding. We had many same sex and inter-racial couples who desired a more intimate and private affair.

However, most commonly we were seeing couples who just didn’t see the need to spend so much money on a big wedding and instead wanted to have a smaller wedding and use the money they would have spent on a down payment for a home or something equally as important to them. Personally I think we were seeing a new generation who just didn’t value the big celebration of a wedding quite as much as their parents generation, coupled with the fact that weddings have never been more expensive - this was the perfect recipe for the normalization of the elopement wedding.

Now with COVID chaos ruining wedding plans left and right, the elopement wedding option is no longer just a trend, it is in many places the only option for getting married in 2020. Couples are becoming familiar with the term elopement wedding and some planners are getting creative and calling them micro-weddings or mini-weddings. In reality, they are all what we define as elopement weddings and are non-traditional in the sense that the couple can keep or discard anything about the wedding day they want.

Want to have a mini wedding in your backyard with lights and dancing? Great! Want to hike to a mountaintop with an officiant and a photographer only? Great! Want to wear an amazing wedding dress? Perfect. Want to wear a non-traditional wedding attire? No problem. Essentially an elopement means the couple can create their own wedding day experience and don’t have to worry about doing any of the traditional things that follow the typical wedding day formula.

We could not be more excited that elopement weddings are becoming so mainstream and mostly because we always want couples to feel as though they have options other than just a traditional wedding day or a courthouse wedding. There are so many ways for couples to come together with their closest family and friends and have a wedding experience they will love and remember forever.

The message we want to get out is that elopements don’t need to be a “less-than” option for couples right now and in fact for many couples it could be an ideal one. For those couples having to re-plan or re-think their original ideas for getting married, it is important to make sure we are doing our best to let them know that elopements are a wonderful option. Even for those couples who elope now and then are planning a big get together later - it is still ideal that they love their wedding day experience and that it was special to them.

What do you think? We know there are many heartbroken couples right now and want to hear from you about why you love elopements and what your couples are going through during this time. Let us know over in our FB community so we can hear your thoughts. Not a part of the Elopement Wedding Pro Community yet? Well come join us! Want to get the Elopement Trend Forecast and stay on top of the small wedding trend? Sign up HERE!