Bucket List #31 - Elope in Vegas...Uh Savannah (How We Planned the Elopement)

My last blog discussed why Hubby and I eloped. The decision was a hard one and unlike what my family now thinks, it wasn't one that we took without thinking of everyone involved. In the end, we wanted a ceremony our special way and eloping did just that. Well, now comes the hard part...planning the elopement.

First decision: Location? Savannah, GA. 

This was a no brainer. We LOVE Savannah, GA. We love the history, romance, and the southern charm of this city. It is a gorgeous place and we had dreams of taking photos under the Spanish moss. If you have never visited Savannah, you must visit. 

So we knew what city we were going to stay in, but then we needed a place to lay our weary heads. Hubby and I are HUGE fans of the website, Airbnb. You can rent someone's home or a room for a week for the cost of a hotel for one day. It is amazing. Because we were limited in our budget, we decided to rent a suite in a home in historic Savannah. Location? Check! House to Stay In? Check!

Second Decision: Church or Justice of the Peace? Church. 

Hubby and I are religious people. We believe that God and prayer are an integral part of our lives. Although we were not having a traditional wedding, we were going to have a traditional ceremony. With that in mind, I needed to find a church that would allow us to wed in their sanctuary with us not being members and for not a lot of money. 

I searched the net and happened upon a website that promoted elopement packages for Savannah. They would do everything from the ceremony to the flowers to the cake. While tempting to do a ready package, I wanted to do something more personalized. However, in the package description, they mentioned Rev. Steve Schulte who does elopements. I researched him and saw that he had amazing reviews from brides and I loved his snappy dressing. So I emailed him and got a response within days. Within a week, we had decided that he would be our pastor for the ceremony and we could get married in his church, St. Luke's Lutheran Church, outside of Savannah. Score!!!

Rev. Steve Schulte

The entrance to the church

Third Decision: Full Wedding Attire or Casual? Wedding Dress, Duh!

Most people would think, "Hey, you are getting married with no one there, why dress up?" Because I want to feel like a bride! While I could not afford to buy my dream Monique Lhullier dress, I wanted to wear a wedding dress that made my feel beautiful and I wanted Hubby in a nice suit to accompany me. He was in luck because he already had a suit, but I don't just have a wedding dress lying around. So here I go to David's Bridal. 

I can honestly say that this is the part where I missed having my mom and aunt there. Shopping for the most important dress in your life is not as much fun without the opinions of the women you love the most. So I trudged into DB with no idea what I wanted and with a budget of only $500. 

In a matter of hours, I tried on nearly all dresses that would fit me and I narrowed it down to a traditional gown and a teacup dress. I was torn. I could not make up my mind. Both were equally beautiful. So, I had to break tradition and bring in the person who's opinion I value the most - Hubby. With his opinion, I went with the traditional dress. 

Sidenote here: I did the typical bride mistake! When I bought my dress, it was tight on me. I vowed to work out, lose weight and fit into that dress. Well I worked out a bit too much, got injured, and spent 4 weeks before our wedding completely sedentary. When I went back the week before our wedding to pick up the dress, I not only could not fit into it, but I had to convince them to trade it in for one in a larger size. Buy the dress in the size you need it at your first fitting.  

My dream Monique Lhullier dress...sigh

The beautiful teacup dress I was considering.

My wedding dress!

Final Details: Decide later? Yes!
So with a few weeks before our wedding, planning of the details came to a halt because of my work-related travel. We still needed a photographer, cake, flowers, my veil, and other smaller details. Hubby told me to stop spinning circles in my head and to just deal with it when we went to Savannah, so that is what we did. I think I got a lot of the major plans done before we got there, but if I had known what I know now, I would not have waited.

So next I will tell you about our wedding day...

Talk later!
Crystal

Bucket List #31 - Elope in Vegas...Uh Savannah (Why We Eloped)

When I say that time flies, I mean it. It was six months ago that I last wrote on this blog. In that time, I have worked more hours than humanly possible, gotten more animals in my household (all foster failures!), had some life changing moments, and had some equally normal and boring moments. I won't bore you with them all, but to get back into the swing of writing, I will tell you the wonderful story about how hubby and I eloped. This is a long story, so I will split it up into three parts - Why We Eloped, How We Planned the Elopement, and The Day We Got Married.

Ryan (Hubby) and I had been friends long before we even became a couple. Finally, three years ago, we became an exclusive couple and despite the fact that most of the time we were in a long distance relationship, we grew more in love and knew that we wanted to spend our lives together. Well when two people figure out that they love each other and want to spend even more time together, what do they do? Get married, of course. 

Long distance loving in 2012

Us at a friend's wedding in 2012

Well here we are. Ready to get married. My Pinterest board is filled with wedding dresses, table settings, and all kinds of great ideas for the ultimate wedding. I am ready to blow things out of the water. Then Ryan gets the call one day while at work. "Babe, let's elope!"

So why did I decide to go against tradition and elope? 

1) Money. (The root of all evil)

Do you know how much weddings cost these days? The dress, the food, the venue, the DJ, the travel and hotels, transportation, gifts for guests. Yes, I could have done a very simple wedding, but I know me and I know that I would have wanted the world. To have something less than ideal for a real wedding would have been more disappointing to me. 

Then you have two people who are still young, having moved to a new city, with me traveling a month straight for work, and with Hubby just getting established at a new job. There just was not enough money for what we dreamed of. In the end, we were not going to hold our MARRIAGE for a WEDDING. 

2) Family. (Who do you invite and who do you cut?)

If we were going to do a wedding, we had decided that we wanted it to be small. We originally set a cap of 40 people. For me, that was easy. My family is small and I could have easily stuck to 20 people on my side, but Hubby has a family that could fill both sides of the church. So the number soon grew to 50, then he was asking for 75. Everyone was essential and important in his life and after meeting his family, I could not think of one person who I didn't instantly love and did not want there. There was too much pressure and when you think of reason #1, you will see how this was soon becoming a major issue. 

3) We wanted something intimate and special

I am sure every bride says that her wedding was special, but if you think about it, 80% of the day is not actually spent with your spouse. You start the day away from each other getting ready and getting fussed over by friends and family. Then you have a 30 minute ceremony where you have to profess your undying love and affection in front of God, your parents, 50 friends and family, and other random people who you may not know. Followed by a reception with said people where the majority of the night is spent walking around thanking them for being there. Hubby and I did not want this for our wedding day. We wanted to be more intimate with each other and really feel the major decision that we were making. 

After my initial phone call, Hubby and I talked about it for another week. We discussed how our families would react. We talked about how we would feel about it. He dealt with me changing my mind over and over and over again. I read blog after blog about eloping. I thought about other friends who decided to elope and how it affected them. Finally, we made the decision that this is what we wanted to do.

So then, planning began...

Talk Later!
Crystal