What Is The Best Way to Announce Your Elopement?
When couples decide to get married there is a good chance that everyone will know about it through online social media such as ‘Save the Date’ cards and invitations, or perhaps even an engagement announcement in the newspaper taken out by their parents! From the beginning a Traditional wedding can very quickly turn into a ‘three-ring circus’! However, when a choice is made to elope, the whole event becomes more private and intimate leaving couples with a bit of a dilemma – what is the best way to announce your elopement? This very subject was covered recently by one of our vendors, Kim Cartmell from ElopeNiagara.com. We loved Kim’s tips and thought that we would offer our own thoughts on this very topic.
5 Ways to Announce Your Elopement
Kim started her blog, that you can read in it’s entirety here, with a quote from Grace Murray Hopper which is so apt for elopement – ‘It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to get permission’. As Kim points out, this quote can be applied to telling friends and family about an elopement. Telling the family about your decision to elope is something that we have covered in the past so we understand how nerve racking it can be to come clean about this topic. However, in her blog, Kim offers a different take on the subject by suggesting some creative and fun ways to break the news to everyone!
1 – Via Social Media
Social media is a great way to make a mass announcement to everyone in your life! We all share every moment of our lives on sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. So why should your wedding be any different? Kim suggests sharing a photo and captioning it ‘We Eloped’ and then sit back and wait for the reactions to start rolling in! We think this will certainly be fun, but we would suggest making sure that your parents and older relatives who may not be involved in social media are given a heads up! It is best they hear it from you rather than a third party.
2 – Make a Video
Kim’s next suggestion is to hire a Videographer to record the ceremony for you so that you can later invite the family round to show them your ‘vacation’ video. This can be a great way to see everyone’s surprise and to tell them all en mass – especially if you follow Kim’s advice and have the bubbly at hand! If hiring a professional is not in your budget, then perhaps you can enlist one of the venue staff members to record your ceremony with your own camera, or you can put together a video slide show of some photographs from the ceremony yourselves.
3 – Wait For Everyone To Notice
If you do not like the idea of making a big deal out of the fact that you have eloped, then maybe Kim’s suggestion of a ‘wait and see’ approach is best for you? She suggests simply wearing your new wedding bands and waiting for people to notice and pass comment. This is fine for friends and co-workers, but we would still encourage you to sit down and talk to your immediate family about your elopement to avoid hurt feelings.
4 – Plan a Party
Another of Kim’s suggestions that we love is to plan some kind of party for friends and family upon your return. Once everyone has arrived you can make your bomb shell announcement. With some champagne and maybe a wedding cake you can quickly transform your family BBQ into a wedding reception that will allow everyone to celebrate your marriage with you.
5 – With a Photograph
In a similar take on the video idea, you could have a wedding portrait done and hung on your wall so that when friends and family visit they will get a surprise. This could also be the image you choose to share for social media. Some couples will take a specific photo with this in mind. We have seen couples holding up a ‘Just Married’ or ‘We Eloped’ banner in their pictures, or even have their kids holding something to announce that their parents have tied the knot! This is a really cute idea. Even if you do not have a Photographer present during the elopement itself, you could easily book a session with one when you get home to create these special images.
We love Kim’s suggestions for announcing your elopement. They seem like great options to get your friends and family involved with celebrating your wedding even if they can’t be there on the day. If you check out Kim’s blog, you can also read a real life story from one of the couples who eloped to The Little Log Chapel after abandoning their traditional wedding plans and then announced the elopement with a big splash!