Harana (elopement) Puns

We’re eloping in Jordan River in July. I’m looking for recommendations for a nice/romantic/cozy restaurant (with tasty food) in and around the Victoria/Sooke areas, to have a meal with our immediate families after the ceremony. There will be a total of 10 people. I’m aware of current COVID restrictions, but planning in advance in case things change by Summer. Any suggestions?

TW: referencing a minor car accident with no casualties.

So I have a major jnm but this is about my MIL who isn't exactly a jnmil but this is an instance where I am needing advice.

After 5 years my partner and I have eloped. I am no contact with my parents and his parents are divorced. Both his mother and his sister have been extremely cold with me (and all his previous partners,) despite me hosting them at my home multiple times, dropping everything to move them across the country, etc... we don't have a relationship.

When we told his mom we eloped, which was not a total surprise, I got the text but simply said "congratulations! welcome to the family. Happy for you both." Which I read as super generic and the bare minimum of what anyone should say, nevermind a MIL. This hurt me and we've talked about it in couples therapy.

Now a month later she was riding her bike and got hit by a car. We are very thankful that there was minor injury. Truly could have been a lot worse. We have been helping her find a lawyer. But she is temporarily out of work on disability leave. We were already planning on visiting her and other family members next month for delayed holidays, but now it's also to help out around the house.

Because all of a sudden she has time on her hands to not being at work, she wants to plan a wedding reception. We are getting questions regarding the theme and food. It feels totally sprung on me. I don't want the stress of planning a reception last minute, and I don't want the attention. Nor do I want to answer theme questions because then I don't want it to be thrown back at me like "you asked me to do this certain theme" and I didn't want it in the first place.

It doesn't feel like it's even about us getting married it's more about her wanting a project. I understand it could be a sweet gesture, for me with the relationship it feels too little too late.

My husband has a soft spot for his mother and allows a lot of her questionable behavior, mostly lack of interest, slide. He does want to be casually celebrated, his idea would be a simple dinner that we pay for and is more focused on gathering the family not performative wedding reception. But he does not want to say no to his mother. My vote would be staying home, but that is not helpful lol.

I realize that weddings usually aren't even about the couple they are about everyone else. Which is why I didn't want a wedding or wedding reception in the first place. We are very happy with our elop

My fiancé and I are eloping in California and getting your hair and makeup done in the area is SO expensive ($500 for just hair or just makeup) it’s way over our budget for this, so I was wondering if anyone has ever used their hair and/or makeup trial as their wedding hair and makeup? The trial is so much cheaper and I’m trying to figure out if anyone has done this on their elopement? Or if this is a good idea? TIA!

***edit to point out these are destination plans as all of our guests would have to travel at least a little to get to our hometown. We want to invite them to a more beautiful, amenity-loaded location.

What parts, if any, do we host besides a nice dinner? The group is mainly close friends, so it’s almost like a rehearsal dinner size than reception, especially since we aren’t doing public vows. Although we may meet up with people the day before, would guests expect us to cover costs throughout the weekend?

We’re thinking of hosting a really nice dinner in a cool spot without any pomp or circumstance or dancing of traditional wedding. Likely location choices include Bermuda, red wood forests in CA, or Vail/Estes resort (or other snowy mountain top outside of Denver) - basically the extremes of ecotourism.

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EDIT: I should have made this clearer, but the point of this post was not "they should have gotten married in SF it was the only way," it was that Brock and Scheana are both parents and spend their money like total ding dongs. I was trying to use SF to illustrate that. They made the decision to spend an obscene amount of money on a ring before even planning how they would pay for a ceremony, and the result was them trying to take over a day that was supposed to be about Raquel and James. They could have gone to an incredibly expensive city and paid for several luxuries and they still would not have spent the $25K that was lost on the ring.

Okay, so I haven't watched the new episode yet (waiting for my husband to be done with work) but I have been reading all of the comments about Brock trying to steal James and Raquel's spotlight and I've had ENOUGH. I am someone that did not want to plan any wedding but ended up planning two of them (to the same person, thx Covid) so I now have a lot of wedding opinions that no one is asking for, myself included.

Here's my argument: Scheana and Brock could have had the chicest (and Covid-safe) elopement to San Francisco, and it would not have even cost them HALF of that ring pop he gave her.

Why San Fran, you ask? They have the SEXIEST City Hall I've ever seen, and a marriage license would be $113 and the venue $1,000 for the hour. There is no need to decorate a building this gorgeous. Look at this shit: https://www.sfcityhallphoto.com/photos

The link above not only shows you how stunning this location is, it shows the photo packages too. They could have gotten the Diamond package fro $1500 for four hours of photography that is not bound to City Hall, this photographer could have followed them to the reception dinner.

Speaking of the reception dinner, this city is packed with Michelin Star restaurants. Prospect does chic American food, which is perfect for a picky eater like Scheana. They do private events. Right now, I am operating under the assumption that they would bring Sandoval and Ariana to be Best Man and Maid of Honor. I was not able to get a quote but I'm willing to bet they could have dinner for four in a private dining room with a set menu for around $1,000. (Take this one with a grain of salt tho, I live in the Midwest and was always blown away by SF prices when I would visit). [https://www.prospectsf.com/private-events/](https://www.prospectsf.com/private-events

Hey everyone, my fiancé and I will be getting married legally in February and then having a bigger wedding down the road. However, we still want to do a small signing ceremony with a few other people (probably max 5) and get some pictures taken. Does anyone have experience with doing this? I have no idea where to start with location since I’m on the east coast and all outdoor venues will be out since we’re getting married during deep winter. All the indoor venues seem to charge normal wedding rates for half/full day when in reality we would at most need 2 hours and not a full venue space. I’m honestly also considering traveling somewhere warmer to do it but with COVID and plane ticket/hotel costs I’m not sure it’s the idea solution 😬 any advice or experiences you can share are very appreciated!

Recently engaged and we know we want to elope out of state and have a really good photographer. I’ve started to browse some elopement packages and I see the cost really varies.

How do y’all feel about elopement packages? Worth it? Or do you prefer handling each detail on your own? Are you giving yourself a budget?

I'm looking for advice on a location for an elopement this July within 1.5 hours from Castle Rock. I'd like to find a location that won't be too crowded with people, so I'm warry of Garden of the God's. We're hoping for beautiful views, not super touristy, and easy to access (for the parents who will be witnessing). Any and all ideas are welcomed! Thank you!

I'm getting married in the next year and I'm wondering what venue options there are around Tacoma for a wedding party of about 5 people. I would love some recommendations, thank you!

My fiancé and I are looking for eloping packages and she is vegetarian. I wondered if anyone had any positive experience with an all inclusive elopement package that included vegetarian options. So far we have looked into Michigan and Tennessee but open for other destinations but more wooded and secluded. Thanks

I don’t know if this belongs her , but here it goes :

For background , FH and I have been together for about 10 years , we always knew we wanted to get married but we’re never big on a wedding, if that makes sense.

We moved in together in 2019 once I finished nursing school and he proposed to me in 2020. We knew even then that we couldn’t afford a big wedding and my FH family is very compared to mine. Both our families mentioned Vegas at that time but ultimately we postponed the wedding due to other issues.

This year me and my FH decided we wanted to get married and wanted to keep our original date we decided to elope to Vegas. We also decided to tell our immediate families as to not blindside them with the news. We told them 2 weeks prior to the elopement.

2 days after we told FMIL she texted us telling us that she had bought herself airplane tickets and she stated that she would only be there for the wedding and will stay out of the way. I was hurt that my mom is unable to attend the wedding because of 1)money 2) can’t speak English enough to travel by herself with layovers. But I understood that his mom wanted to attend

The issue for me comes from when she poke to my FH she told him his brother would also attend and his grandma was unable to attend due to a prior appointment she couldn’t miss. Also they would stay in Vegas thought the duration of our stay. This makes me feel alone, in addition FMIL could have asked my mother to join them in their flight and it would not be an issue but she did not do that, she only thought about her family. I don’t know what to do. Help.

Update: I was speaking with FH if possibly his mom could escort my mom through the airplane, and if we could have her information. She said “ummm yeaaa “ and 30 minutes later or so just texted us saying she won’t be coming to the wedding. So I guess that’s that.

I always like seeing these, so here's my breakdown. We did a courthouse ceremony, a small cake and wine gathering afterward, and then took "official wedding" pictures in Portugal a month later. We'll use those for wedding announcements. All in, we ended at $9920 including wedding rings. We DEFINITELY could have done some things more economically (you'll see that my husband is extra af and had a suit custom made for more than 2x the cost of my dress and alterations), but we're happy and that's what matters.

Legal marriage

Dress : $62

Shoes: $160

Floral supplies: $23

Marriage license plus ceremony fee: $110

Groom's suit/shirt/tie/shoes : $0 (owned)

Bride's wedding band: $666 (lol)

Groom's wedding band : $150

Gluten free wedding cake: $70

Sparkling wine: $120

Subtotal: $1405

"Official" Wedding Photos (excl. other honeymoon costs)

Bride's dress and alterations: $1554

Bride's shoes: $0 (owned)

Accessories: $42

Groom's suit and shoes: $3850

Photography: $600

Airfare: $2000

Photo permit: $169

Accommodations for first two nights of trip: $250

Subtotal: $8465

Grand total: $9911

And for funsies, one of my favorite pics from Portugal: http://imgur.com/a/DteaOHR

Please share your elopement location and experiences! Fiancé and I are having a hard time deciding where to look into.

I (26F) eloped with my now-husband (35M) on Sunday. We've been dating for almost two years, one of which was long distance. We went on a trip to CO to meet up with some gamer friends of his, and decided that was going to be part of the trip. I'm trying to go active duty and for him to come with me, we'd have to be married.

Before everyone flips out about our age gap, we met and started dating because we were at similar points in life. He having spent the last three years taking care of his grandfather (who died during the first year of our relationship) and me having spent three years taking care of someone terminally ill (that person died during the second year). We're also both National Guard.

So we eloped and told his family first. Their first response? Congrats.

We tell my family. My mom says okay, and my dad says that's good... I guess. My mom starts quizzing me about what our plan is. I have two months until my contract runs out at the latest and then go active. I will admit I did not handle myself well and pointed out that I only have so long until I go active. Then she says, "Aren't you supposed to stop jumping between parents now that you're married?" Excuse me, Mom, how many times did you and Dad move back in with my grandparents? I said okay, thanks, I get it, bye, and hung up. Again, I have two months tops until I go active. Why spend the money to move right now, only to move maybe two months later? I got very emotional and ended up deleting my Facebook. Of course, Mom and Dad assumed I just blocked them. Reasonable assumption, but whatever. It was an emotional reaction to delete Facebook and I own that. I did apologize to my mom for hanging up on her.

His parents don't mind if we stay - DH helps out around their house. We were just deployed in 2020 and he was saving money for emergencies/house. He's unemployed but just applied for Grubhub. I understand there are red flags. It's picking the ones you can live with. DH lives in a small town. Job opportunities are limited, and since DH was in the army for so long, they often tell him he's overqualified for positions. DH would love nothing more than to work. It will be literally easier for him to get a job once I go active.

My dad later texted me and asked if getting married in CO was always a part of our plans. I asked him if it really mattered. He says yes, and then goes on about how he feels manipulated and blindsided. Blindsided I get. I don't get manipulated and I asked him about it.

My fiance and I are getting married in May. We are thinking of small wedding. Any recommendations for elopement packages? Thanks

Keeping this short: We were gonna have some family but because we’re from different countries and traveling is so sketchy right now with covid we think we may elope just the two of us to reduce stress.

However, one of the biggest things making this seem like a bummer is the idea of having no one there to celebrate with us but a bunch of strangers standing around (photographer, celebrant, etc)

To those who eloped: can you please tell us how it felt?

Was it weird standing there together with a bunch of vendors watching you and no family?

How did it feel walking down the ”aisle” with no family there but a bunch of vendors standing around?

How about when exchanging vows?

Basically I’m just trying to get myself into the headspace of what it’s like during the ceremony with just you two, no family, and a bunch of relative strangers?

Thank you so much to anyone who’s willing to share your insight/experiences

Hi all, My partner and I are planning an elopement this summer and are looking for photographers. We are planning on a very short ceremony (10 minutes or so) and taking some pictures before and after for our parents who won’t be there. We’re frugal and casual people who are not interested in pictures of things like a closeup of the dress, or flowers, or cake, or first look. Things like that.

After talking to a few people, I figured we would need a photographer for about 2 hours, no more, because we’re really just after some nice pictures of us. I reached out to a couple photographers and the first one quoted me $1000 for 2 hours. Is this too much? Does anyone have a recommendation for inexpensive but quality photos? Thanks!

Hi! So I thought I wanted something slightly extravagant but after touring and getting pricing, for everything I envisioned it’d be $12k+. So now my plan is potentially have a courthouse wedding elopement, get professional photos done of just us, and then do a dinner reception the next night as a celebration (dinner, drinks, games)

Onto my question! I also reallyyyy want a bridal party. Is this fine if our wedding is more laid back? How could I potentially make my bridal party feel more important during our reception if they may not go to the elopement (figuring only our parents would want to be there)? Or does this just not make sense?

I don't give permission for this story to be used elsewhere.

We're getting married next year, and the celebrant told us that we're going to need 2 witnesses.

This was no big deal at first, because it was going to be the photographer and then we were going to pick someone random as witness #2...maybe our Airbnb host.

But we found out that we can't do this as the registry office need to know the names of the witnesses 3 months in advance.

We're also eloping to a remote location, in a forest...picking a witness on the fly is basically out.

This got me thinking that it would be useful to have my mum there after all, she could be a witness, help me get ready, and provide a car so that we can travel separately to the location (and we can nail those "first look" pictures).

But now, understandably, fiancé doesn't feel good about the idea of my mum being there (even though we have a great relationship with her and she'd literally just be providing a signature and then leaving). He wants his parents to go now.

But his mum is the main reason we're eloping in the first place.

We've got a long and complicated history with her, involving veiled racist actions/comments towards me and basically we're always on eggshells with her because of her undiagnosed mental illness and general shittiness as a person. She's tactless and exhausting.

Fiancé generally keeps her at arm's length, because nobody in his family has a shiny enough spine to keep her in her place. Apart from fiancé. So if he went NC with her, he'd essentially be cutting off all his immediate family.

I have anxiety anyway, and his mum kicks it off. Big time. I really don't want her there.

I don't know what to do, because I see where he's coming from...he doesn't want to sneak off and get married behind his family's back. But I also won't be able to relax and enjoy the day, with MIL being there...especially with so few people there to mitigate things (me, fiancé, our daughter, MIL, FIL and my mum).

I'm frustrated because his parents had 3 kids, and have 2 other chances to attend their kid's wedding. Me and my mum only have each other, and by trying to keep things fair, my mum is missing out on the only chance she's going to get to see her child get married. When she's done nothing wrong.

And she's being really sweet and understanding about the fact that she might not be going.

Genuinely don't know what to do and am open to your stories/advice.

Thanks peeps!

My fiance and I got engaged in December. We decided we want to get married in September and that we would have a small wedding. I hate wedding planning. Even a 30 person wedding will likely cost us more than $10k. I thought we were doing this because my fiance said he wanted a small wedding but last night he made a joke about eloping and suddenly it occurred to me that we could actually do that.

Has anyone decided to elope after thinking they would have a wedding and how did you feel about it?

Recently engaged and started looking into elopements. Does anyone have any recommendations for good elopement packages? Not too picky on location (within the states, probably stick to west coast). Think a package would be easy so something that includes an officiant/photographer/bouquet type thing. Any info would be appreciated :)

Hi all,

I’m planning a fall microwedding and trying to make it as easy and stress-less as possible. I have a bit of anxiety and I’m already dreading speaking vows even in front of a small group. I’m also trying to avoid drama with my fiancé’s mom who is pretty critical and on bad terms with his dad’s side of the family, leaving us unsure of whether we should invite them or not.

I’m starting to consider just the two of us eloping with his mom as witness but I also really want to take some nice photos with my family. My parents are up there in age and I’m the last unmarried person of all my siblings & cousins, so this is probably the last chance we can all get dressed up together. I also like the idea of having my sister wear a bridesmaid dress and seeing my nephews dressed as flower boys :D

I wish I could have the ceremony with just my family (I’m less stressed about speaking my vows in front of only them) but that obviously isn’t fair to my fiancé and it will leave his mom left out. I thought having her as witness was a good way to include her, then we could do a party and maybe even a faux ceremony with my fam. Is that a silly idea though?

I want to start this off by saying, I am not in ANY WAY trying to sound ungrateful. I really am so happy. We were lucky enough to win our elopement package so everything was picked out for us except our outfits. We didn’t get a say in whether we wanted a sunrise or sunset ceremony, we had it mid afternoon. But the thing I am most upset about now is our photos. Our photographer was lovely but a LOT of our photos are very dark or over exposed or are mostly of just my husband or my back. There really aren’t that many photos with both of us in them. Looking back on them I wish we had a lot more. Has anyone had this happen and what did you end up doing about it?

I just need to vent because my feelings are hurt.

I’ve been engaged for about 2 years now. The plan has always been to have a destination elopement, everyone understood that we would rather explore a new country than spend all that money on one day. MIL was also surprisingly okay at first.

Well, my future brother in law tells us that she’s been going around saying that we “will regret it for the rest of our lives”, and that she was going to try to talk us out of this dream trip that we spent 2 years planning.

The decision to elope has not been easy, I love my family. We are having a celebration when we return, and are paying for a nice photographer to document the wedding day.

I just feel that her words are almost malicious, because I think it’s coming from a place of anger and feeling left out. But ya know, everyone is kind of being left out. I’m sure my parents are a little disappointed but they would never say anything like that.

It’s not even like MIL said “I hope they don’t regret it” or “I fear they will regret it”, it’s “they WILL regret it FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIVES” it’s got the whole “you’ll rue the day you were born” vibes.

Anyway, I know she’s just throwing a temper tantrum because that’s who she is. I’m just tried of dealing with a 60 year old woman who has the emotional intelligence of a cucumber.