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One of the hardest parts about planning a wedding is facing the fact that someone you love will not be able to be there for your big day. Maybe you have family or friends who live too far away, or maybe your loved ones have conflicting schedules. One couple decided that rather than leave anyone out, they would bring the wedding to their friends and family -- even though it meant having five weddings in nine months.

It started with an elopement: Simonne Harris' boyfriend, Ryan Feeney, whisked her off to Las Vegas three months into their relationship. He proposed during their transatlantic flight, dropping an engagement ring into her glass, and then announced that he had already arranged for them to be married at the famous Little White Wedding Chapel.

Last month, they were married again in Bodrum, Turkey, where the groom's mother lives. They are planning three more ceremonies -- one in August in their hometown of Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, in England, one in September in Florida, where the bride's father lives, and a final ceremony in Lilydale, Victoria, Australia, where the bride's mother lives.

Each ceremony has its own flair; the Turkish wedding took place at sunset, the Florida wedding will be a Jewish blessing, and the Aussie wedding will have purple flowers, the mother of the bride's favorite.

And yes, the bride is wearing a different dress for every wedding.

Steve Rowland, self-confirmed commitment phobe and restless nomad, married a woman he'd known for four weeks in a quickie Vegas ceremony. Now, two years later, the couple are still married and he insists they don't regret it. In fact, he says it's the best thing he ever did.

That statement is a far cry from the way they felt less than an hour after the wedding ceremony, when he and his wife considered an annulment.

So how did this madcap marriage happen?

Well, Steve met his wife, Celia, a friend of his brother, at a pub in London. It was love at first sight. They had a month-long, whirlwind romance that culminated in their hopping onto a plane and heading for Vegas. They kept it a secret, though, thinking that if it didn't work out, they could get a divorce and nobody would ever know.

Sometimes, you just want to throw off all of the formality of a wedding ceremony: the expense, the expectations, the endless planning. If the ceremony is less important to you than a honeymoon, or you just want to hurry up and start your lives together, you can get married quickly and painlessly. Besides running off to Vegas or eloping somewhere else, you can tie the knot on your way to your favorite destination.

In Los Angeles, there's the Officiant Guy. Chris Robinson is a non-denominational minister who can perform just about any marriage ceremony you can think of -- even airport weddings. There are a variety of reasons to get married at an airport. You met your love while traveling. Maybe you're a pilot and he's an airline steward. Or perhaps you just want to get married in LAX on your way to to that fabulous honeymoon in Santorini.

The Officiant Guy can marry you in the airport even if you don't live in California. He's authorized to issue confidential marriage licenses - which means you can get a license instantly, get married and get on your way. And if you want to keep your marriage quiet for whatever reason, that confidential license will mean that no one but you, your spouse, and your officiant even have to know you're married.

So if you want to get married on the run and don't want to use a justice of the peace, think about someone like the Officiant Guy.

Lots of couples decide to elope when they get frustrated with all the pressure and expense of planning a wedding. Big weddings and secret elopements are not your only options, though. There's a middle path being forged by celebrities: the surprise wedding.

Surprise weddings are a sort of public elopement, where you invite guests to a party, and when they arrive, you surprise them with your wedding. There's still a ceremony, so there's of course still some planning to do, but it's much more low-key and low-stress than a traditional wedding.

When you have a surprise wedding, you sidestep the problem of overbearing relatives who hijack the wedding plans, and you can save big money. We also know that putting "No gifts, please," on an invitation won't stop people from bringing presents by the truckload -- so for the couple who really doesn't want or need any gifts, this is a great way to stop them from coming. And, according to Marilyn Oliveira, senior editor at the WeddingChannel.com, holding a surprise wedding is the perfect way to "make a big splash without a huge budget."

So before you toss all your spreadsheets out the window and run to City Hall, maybe you want to consider hosting your own surprise wedding instead.

When Dan and Maggie Miller invited family and friends to a New Year's Eve engagement party, guests arrived to find wedding cake in the hall and Maggie in a big white dress. "Surprise! It's our wedding!"

The couple, both busy in med school, had considered eloping to avoid all the hassle of wedding planning. "By the time I got to the point I was actually going to get married, I didn't want to deal with all that stuff," Maggie said. But since their friends would be in town for the holidays anyway, they decided to make their "elopement" a public affair -- while still keeping the wedding part a secret.

They let a few close friends and family members in on the secret, and it was Maggie's mom who insisted on the white dress. "My son had a huge church wedding," she said, "so I had a huge church wedding in my pocket and didn't need another." It sounds like Maggie should thank her brother for getting her off the hook!

For a while now, celebrities have been embracing the surprise wedding trend as a way to keep the paparazzi away from their nuptials, but more and more non-celebs are copying the idea, finding that the surprise wedding is a great way to elope without actually eloping.

For most people who elope, letting the secret out is pretty much the end of the line. Most people don't have a party or reception because you eloped to save money on that stuff in the first place. But hey, you've already broken from tradition -- it's not like there are rules you have to follow now. Have a party if you want to!

As with the ceremony, a post-elopement reception can be just like a typical wedding reception if that's what you want. You can do a fancy dress code, a three-tiered cake, music, dancing, and entertainment -- but you shouldn't have wedding-like expectations of your guests. They should not be pressured or expected to bring gifts, for one thing. It's great if you make this clear on your invitation -- a simple "No gifts, please" at the bottom will be fine (and lots of people will bring presents anyway). It is easy for parties like this to take on the appearance of a gift grab, which is not why you're doing it, is it?

You also need to be understanding if and when guests don't go out of their way to attend your party. People don't see these events as important as weddings, and if attending means buying a plane ticket or taking vacation days from work, don't expect them to do it.

When you think of a Vegas wedding, you probably think of all those disastrous alcohol-induced celebrity quickie marriages, like Britney Spears' infamous 55-hour marriage to that guy she was pals with in high school. With all the free alcohol and the city's reputation for wildness, it's no surprise that Sin City is notorious for ill-conceived nuptials.

But not all Vegas weddings are impulse purchases. Lots of people plan luxurious, stylish, and fun destination weddings in the city that never sleeps, and you can have a lovely Vegas wedding if that's what you want.

The legal requirements for marriage in Vegas are simpler than just about anywhere else in the world. Do you have a pulse? Do you have a few bucks? Good, then you can get married in Vegas.

Las Vegas is known for a lot of things -- gambling, partying, drinking, shows -- but weddings are right there at the top. And, celebrity weddings in Las Vegas are always good for a headline or two.

While some celebrities chose Vegas as a wedding location because that's where they lived or because they wanted a destination to which friends and family could come and have a great time, Las Vegas is chosen just as often as a spur-of-the-moment spot to get hitched (often owing to those other things for which Vegas is so famous, like the partying and the drinking). Click the Next button to find out which celebrity got married in the chapel shown above!

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.

Let's face it: Las Vegas doesn't have the best image when it comes to weddings. Elvis impersonators and drive-through chapels aren't every girl's dream of the perfect wedding day. But there's more to Vegas than just drunken I do's. Las Vegas has a whole culture, one that is big and bright and full of cool retro inspiration for your wedding day.

This week at AisleDash, we'll show you how to have a Vegas-inspired wedding that steers clear of tacky and cliche. We'll bring you great Vegas-themed invitations, party favors, gowns, and music, and we'll take a look at some memorable celebrity Vegas nuptials. We'll even tell you how to find an Elvis impersonator in YOUR town, if you want to go that route.

Still wanting to elope? We've got you covered there, too!

Back when she was still quite the pop princess, Britney Spears wed her childhood pal, Jason Allen Alexander, at the Little White Wedding Chapel at five in the morning. The couple didn't exactly dress for the January 3, 2004 nuptials -- Britney wore jeans and a baseball cap.

No friends or family members were present, so Britney was escorted down the aisle by a lucky hotel bellman. Almost as soon as the ink dried on the magazines announcing the super-surprising marriage, the couple signed annulment papers, and after just 55 hours, the marriage was over.

You think that sounds less than classy? Check out our next celebrity Vegas wedding!

Have you always dreamed of climbing the heights of Macchu Picchu? Why not get married there, in an authentic Andean ceremony? If you think that sounds amazing, but would be a logistical nightmare, you're right - if you're thinking of having a traditional wedding. But if you consider eloping, well, then it's a little more feasible...

Forbes Traveler has compiled a list of some of the most stylish and unique places to elope, because, as they put it: The classic elopement ... has been modernized and redefined. It's less about keeping secrets than keeping the experience personal-and perfect.

The popular image of an elopement is that it's a spur-of-the-moment decision made by a young couple sneaking away to get married before anyone (read: parents) can stop them.

Of course, we all know that's not always the case anymore. Instead, elopements can be as elegant or complex as any other wedding - except for the fact that there is no guest list. (Which let's face it, is a major source of stress for many engaged couples.)

Check the article for some truly amazing locales, and get some inspiration for your perfect elopement!

There are people who claim an elopement is by definition a breach of etiquette. If you don't have a proper wedding, even if it's a very small one, you have committed a huge social faux pas. However, there are good reasons to elope: Maybe there's been a death of a close family member, and you no longer feel a big wedding is appropriate, so you slip off very quietly to city hall to have it made formal; maybe you simply can't afford a big wedding; maybe there are insurmountable religious/cultural differences. Emily Post and Judith Martin acknowledge that etiquette puts consideration and kindness above rules and regs. Sure the rest of us can do the same?

But if there's one rule that stands up to just about every situation, it is this: An elopement is a secret. Nobody knows but the two of you.

Why is that important to etiquette?

You've had the Big White Wedding, complete with flowers, photographers, the harpist in the church and the DJ at the reception. You've had the cake and the receiving line and the eight attendants. You've done all that once, and it was nice, but this is your second "I Do", and you just don't ...

want all the fuss this time around, that is.

This time, the emphasis is on the relationship. This time, your focus is on the marriage, not the wedding. And that is why this time you've decided to elope. You might not want to do this if you have children of an age to want to be part of the ceremony, even if it's a very simple one. But if you have no children, or your children are grown with lives of their own, an elopement might be exactly the right thing for the second-time-lucky couple.

The average American wedding today costs in the order of $30,000. With the average American family making a little over $46,000, that's eight months' income for most of us. And since you have to spend money for frivolous things like housing and food, it'll take a lot more than eight months to save it up. Unless, of course, you decide to go into debt, and put your brand-new marriage under thousands of dollars of stress.

An elopement gets around all that. For far less than $30,000, you could have an amazing honeymoon. You could buy your condo or put a down payment on a house. Or you could just invest it.

In fact, you could go so far as to say an elopement is a financially responsible thing to do!