His parents have a beautiful home so we decided to get married there. It was early COVID so everything was closed, and we barely got a marriage license before even the local government buildings closed. My wedding dress was locked up in a bridal store that was also closed, if you would believe it. Ultimately we decided on doing a small intimate ceremony with our photographer and then taking additional wedding photos in my actual dress later. So we have two sets of absolutely gorgeous pics. We did a first look, and made each other drinks. We're both musicians so we played music together before the ceremony all dressed up. We FaceTimed my parents and read a letter mg mother wrote me for my wedding day (she had just had surgery so she couldn't travel.) So that they could still be a part of it.
We didn't know what to expect with eloping but it ended up being such a beautiful intimate experience. My father in law married us, all our friends and family took pictures and messaged them to us for our "wedding album". Nobody had to travel (most of our family is spread out throughout the country) I definitely recommend eloping now. One of my friends ended up eloping on the side of a mountain in winter and her pictures were absolutely gorgeous. The best part about it is you get total control over the environment, setting, and mood. We had actually finished planning our entire wedding and all deposits paid before it was cancelled, and the planning stage was very drama filled. People get so emotional over weddings that aren't theirs lol. Eloping was a relief.
At first we definitely got some pushback. People were very worried that we would regret not having the extravagant wedding that we had planned. But we stuck to our guns that we didn't want to wait. Now our family loves telling people about how beautiful our wedding ceremony was. I definitely think streaming it to them helped. Nobody felt left out that way.
