Secret Weddings

The buzzword in the office the past week has definitely been ‘eloping’, thanks to our resident Primped Editor, Yasemin Turker (now Trollope!). I can hear the screams of mothers everywhere now, “noooooo not eloping!”, yes mothers of our knotties, eloping.
 
Yaz embarked on an amazing eight month long journey around the globe with her partner aiming to settle in New York for some correspondence work (i.e. live the dream).  We had all expected that she would get engaged whilst overseas – isn’t that what everyone expects? Not always the case my knotties, but people always say it.
 
So when the news made its way over a few oceans to Sydney shores that Yaz was getting married, needless to say, we were excited and happy for her. Being the wedding-y people that we are, of course we were anticipating planning with her and assisting along the way for the duration of the engagement. We would ponder what her wedding theme would be, what type of invites she would have, was she having ‘save the date’ cards?! Surprisingly, a few weeks later we received another email from Yaz asking for a dress designer and mentioning she will be having a wedding within the month! Out went all the pondering.
 
Up until this very moment I have never really considered eloping and thought it was better left to those who venture to Vegas. Now I have almost done a complete turnaround. Yaz has definitely made the idea of a very small intimate and fast wedding so appealing. Ok, I don’t have a big family, so even if I wanted to have an extravagant production of a wedding, I don’t think I’d have the numbers to pull it off. But not only that, there is so much that goes into wedding planning. Some people can take it all so seriously and let it take over their life to the point where all they speak about is their wedding and it becomes more of a show, not something special where the bride and groom celebrate their love. When I asked Yaz why she had decided to elope, her answer was simple, “The thought of spending one year arranging one day doesn’t interest me at all. Hail the fast wedding!” I am all for organising things and am an avid lover of planning, but the girl has a point! People can stress themselves out with all the planning of this one day and ultimately lose track of what it’s meant to be about. I actually find something so romantic in the idea of going down to a nice park with two witnesses, a celebrant and sharing your vows – eloping.
 
My best friend and bride to be, Anna is in total agreement with me however the size of her family (200+ wedding guests) has forced her to have a much bigger wedding than she would like. This topic of eloping has been an eye opener to a few girls in the office. For some it just reinforced their choice of a long engagement and planning was the path they are most happy with, and for others like me it showed another option to be considered; an option that may define my partner and I a little more.
 
However, being the typical on-the-fence Libran, I would like to have the best of both worlds. I would like to have a short engagement and a small wedding with finer details still planned out (decorations, invites etc) – let’s not forget I am a designer!

Where on the fence do you sit in regards to eloping? Have any of you eloped? Has the long planning process stressed you out or are you still excited by it?