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