Elopement vs Small Wedding

What about that gorgeous treehouse restaurant venue I think that's near you. I'm eloping to Lapland with just two friends but that's not for everyone. Marrying in the Ice Chapel.

you can elope to anywhere. Just find somewhere you like, marry at the registry office or find a licences venue or whatever you want. Make a weekend of it. One couple on here eloped in London and then spent the weekend in Paris and had a photographer capture both the English and French photos.

What you have to weigh up is how much grief will you get and be prepared to put up with having a small wedding and inviting family compared to eloping and inviting none.

I think if your family are not too keen then an intimate wedding sounds like a lovely alternative. Just had a quick Google for Northumberland and Woodhill Hall came up. Romantic and lovely and only requires small numbers.

Ultimately the choice is for you and your other half. I think deep down you know if a larger wedding with family that are not as supportive as you would like would be a good or bad idea.

it is your day and you want it to be perfect so weigh up all of the pros and cons for both types of weddibg.

I'm sure you will find somewhere beautiful, especially up north :-)

We were in a similar position to you, except, we had a much bigger wedding planned originally. When it came time for invitations to go out, lots of family made excuses about coming and no one seemed very enthusiastic about it at all. There's a bit more to it than that, but the long and short is that we decided to cancel everything and elope.

I was keen to elope, my partner eventually said he wanted his close family there, so in the end we got legally married in a local registry office, just the 2 of us and our witnesses. A few days later we then had a tiny day with just 14 guests (parents, siblings and their partners only) I wasn't much interested in the whole idea and would have preferred to just elope. Until we actually had the wedding that is.

On the day everyone was keen and enthusiastic, everyone joined in and helped us celebrate and i'm now really pleased we had the small wedding too. Unless there's a particular reason people aren't being very keen, like an ongoing dispute, I do think people generally tend to cheer up when it comes to it. Weddings just aren't a big deal to everyone so until it comes around there's not always much enthusiasm.

If you really want to just marry that legal bit can be done anywhere. You can then go on to somewhere pretty and have a celebrant ceremony, which is very personal and would be perfect for an elopement!

You could do the uk eloping to gretna, Ive heard eloping is easy in portugal be aware some places are hard to elope to as we learned now just doing a british wedding lol

This place is in Devon but it's beautiful and very intimate http://www.elopement-packages.co.uk/index.php

Or there is Scotland http://www.skyeweddings.co.uk/just-the-two-of-us

i would ask around local venues such as hotels. There was a beautiful elopement report where a couple got married in London with Chelsea pensioners as their witnesses, picked up flowers from a stall and hopped on the euro star for their honeymoon. I believe they tied the knot in a hotel. Another option is abroad?

Thank you for some really nice ideas all! Looks like a long few hours ahead of me searching for places again!

You could also elope abroad...... Hehe