AisleDash

As you plan your elopement, you will decide who, if anyone, will be invited to your ceremony. The typical elopement, though, is just the two of you plus a witness or two. So when do you tell your family and friends -- the ones who won't be there to see it?

The problem with telling people in advance is that many of them are going to want to come. When an American friend of mine became engaged to a Canadian several years ago, they decided to have a courthouse ceremony right away to get the citizenship ball rolling, but then do a big wedding with all their friends and family after they'd had time to plan it. They told everyone of these plans, and both families insisted on being there to witness the "real" wedding. When the bride's large Canadian family came down from Montreal, they insisted on making a week of it, since they'd come so far. They did a rehearsal dinner, wedding day brunch, fancy clothes, the works. This quickie civil ceremony turned into a several thousand dollar event, and the big wedding that the couple really wanted? Never happened.
This isn't a unique story. Lots of people plan civil ceremonies (elopements) to be followed by bigger ceremonies later, but the fact is that few of these second weddings ever actually happen. Sometimes it's because the couple just never gets around to it; other times it's because so many people crashed the elopement that a big wedding later just feels like a rerun.

Whether you plan a "real" wedding down the road or not, keep in mind that the intimacy of your elopement will likely be compromised when you share the news in advance.

Still, etiquette dictates that you should tell your close friends and family in advance. Excluding them from such a major event in your life is likely to alienate them and hurt their feelings. You don't want to do that, but you also don't want them to show up at your private ceremony. So how do you find the happy medium? Some suggest that you should make a few phone calls on your way to your wedding, just to clue people in ahead of time.

Personally, I don't see the difference between calling them five minutes before or five minutes after the fact. Actually, I do -- I think it takes some of the magic out of the announcement to say "We're about to get married!" instead of "Guess what?! I've got big news..." Maybe it's not that different, but we decided to just call everyone right after it was a done deed. The fact that it was April Fools Day made for a lot of fantastic conversations.

"Guess what?"
"What?"
"McKenzie and I just got married!"
"Oh my gosh! Congrat-- wait a second. Are you messing with me? Is this an April Fools Joke? Good one."

Some people still aren't 100% sure we really did it. (We did, really.) This has been great fun for us.

Because we'd kept the idea mostly to ourselves, some people were very shocked when we told them the news. My brother seemed pretty upset with me when I told him, and I do regret not keeping him more in the loop in advance -- only our parents really knew we were planning to get married, and I think my brother worried that I'd gotten drunk and impulsive. But aside from an uncomfortable conversation with him, breaking the news to the rest of our friends and family was pretty easy; no one got mad at us for the way we did things, and even our mothers, who had desperately wanted to be there to witness our vows, were thrilled with the news and don't seem too bothered by the fact that they weren't present. They seem to have realized that there wasn't anything to see.

If your friends and family are the type to hold grudges, you may need to give your method of breaking the elopement news some serious thought, but in my case, it wasn't a big deal at all (and I was concerned that it might be). If everyone likes you and your fiance, their joy will probably outweigh any resentment they feel -- and most will probably feel no resentment at all.

The first phone call is the hardest. Good luck.