Your Guide for Planning the Perfect Elopement
Everything You Need to Know to Plan the Ultimate Elopement Day
I’ve said it before but if I were to do it all over again, I would elope. Now I know that’s easy for me to say since I have had the big wedding experience. Don’t get me wrong, weddings are magical and wonderful too and there is a place for them. However, ideally, I would have eloped somewhere amazing with my husband and then planned a big reception party with our loved ones for another day.
Why Elope?
Every couple is different and has different priorities when it comes to getting married. Some want to have the big wedding in front of everyone they know, others want to keep it private and just between the two of them and their closest friends. There is no right or wrong way and all wedding or elopement days are beautiful!
Eloping is a very intentional decision to mark the rest of your lives with a day truly catered to honoring your love story with just you two and maybe your closest family and friends. Your elopement day will truly depend on your priorities and your why for eloping. Some couples choose to elope for the adventure of it, picking a special spot that inspires them and resonates with their story. Others choose to elope for personal reasons having to do with family or maybe to avoid the hustle, stress and cost of a huge wedding. Others just simply want to keep the day about them. Whatever the reason, keep it close and remember it throughout your elopement planning process.
Planning the Dream Day
Your elopement day should reflect your love story. When you sit down to plan your elopement day, think about your dream day as a couple. What do you love to do? Where have you always wanted to go? What are your favorite foods or drinks to enjoy together? The fun thing about an elopement is that it can truly be a whole weekend (or longer) experience catered to what makes you, you. Talk about the feelings, vibes and look of the perfect day and plan from there.
Choosing your Elopement Location
This is by far, the biggest part of your elopement day as it sets the tone for your whole experience. There are so many beautiful locations in the states and beyond. You can’t go wrong as long as you choose a location meaningful to you. Choosing a location that is meaningful and familiar to you can be a special way to have a “full-circle” moment while choosing a brand new location can mark the start of a new adventure and a new experience together. Here’s some ideas to consider when choosing your elopement location:
The Vibes or Look of it
As a couple, think about what kind of scenery you envision for your perfect day. Are you running through the sand on the Oregon coast or are you hiking to the top of a viewpoint in the mountains? Do you love the green and moody pine look in photos or do you imagine yourself surrounded by red rocks and arches? Decide first what look you like and then research locations from there. Bonus tip: once you have a general idea, your photographer can recommend epic places that match your ideal vision (pick me!).
Weather and Season
After choosing your ideal area, consider the best season for the location. This goes without saying, but if you envision a beautiful sunset on the Oregon Coast or in the Wildflowers on Mount Rainier, summer is your best bet. In fact, most places in the Pacific Northwest are best from June to October, though that’s not to say it isn’t beautiful all year round. If you love the desert or retro vibes of Palm Springs, Spring and Fall are your best bet. Other things to consider in your location are tides, weather closures and tourists in the area for the season.
Accessibility
If you plan on bringing guests to your elopement, think about who and what they can handle in terms of getting there. All Trails is a great resource when looking at hiking locations and accessibility for people who may have more trouble getting around. It is also great for noting how strenuous a hike may be for you. Maybe hiking up a 12 mile mountain is not something you want to do carrying a wedding dress!
Other things to consider with accessibility is how many people can fit in the area, if there are restrooms or changing areas around, if dogs are allowed (if you want to bring your dog. In some states, dogs can count as your witness!), if parking is available or if you need additional permits. Several places require a day-use permit while others might require a special event permit. Make sure and research the location to see what you will need for your specific park or venue.
Privacy
The last thing to consider when picking a location is how private it is and if privacy is a concern for your day. While state and national parks are ideal elopement locations, a lot of the easily accessible areas will have other people around. Most people are respectful of photography for elopements but that doesn’t mean they won’t catch a seat nearby and watch. Decide if you want a fully private ceremony or if a couple bystanders are ok and choose your location accordingly. Sunrises during the week are, in my experience, the best for avoiding crowds all together.
Decide on your Budget
While elopements can be more affordable than a big wedding, they can still be an investment! You can go as hard or as chill as you want with your budget, but my advice would be to be willing to invest a little in the things that matter to you. This may just be between the two of you, but you deserve to curate a day to you that you will remember forever.
With that being said, as you dream up your perfect elopement weekend, what sorts of splurges do you envision? Are you hoping for a romantic getaway in a resort or lodge on the beach? Do you want to cap off the ceremony with a special meal at one of those restaurants with “tiny portions of pretentious food” (Phoebe from Friends)? Or do you want to pack the weekend with fun and meaningful activities that may be a little investment?
How to Come up with your Budget
Obviously if you have a hard and fast number to stay under, that’s great- quick and easy. However, I have found that most couples don’t even know where to start when it comes to footing the bill for an elopement, let alone coming up with an exact number to stick to!
Tips for Setting a Budget
As a couple, go on a budgeting date. Sit down and list out everything that you want to include in your elopement. I have a guide for my elopement couples that will help here. Everything from travel, hair and make up, food, licenses- everything. List it out.
Next, put a N next to everything with a set price and list it: these are nonnegotiables. These will be the prices of things that a) you’ve already spent or b) are things that you have to have no matter what. An example would be your location permit price or wedding application. Those are nonnegotiables with a set price. Then, start numbering the remainder of your list in order of priority to you. This doesn’t mean that number 10 is not going to be at your wedding, it means that you are willing to spend significantly less money in this area. You may have to do this draft-style (taking turns) if you and your significant other have differing views of priority if that will help!
From there, start researching the costs of your top priority items. The top priority items should account for about 50-60 percent of your budget with the remainder being your lesser priority but still needed items. Start drafting sample budgets based on the costs of your top items- research a range just in case you need to give a little as you work through your budget.
From there, you can determine what budget both makes sense, includes a couple “dream” priority items and still has room for the lower priority items. You may have to give in one area to take in another. Some couples find that they can either settle for a lesser cost but still high quality item while others decide they need a little more time to save. Doing this budget analysis helps you line up everything you need to include and then how you might go about deciding on a final number.
Average Elopement Budget
A typical elopement budget in this day and age is $5k-$15k. Let’s use a $10,000 budget with highest priorities being lodging, photography and dress/suit. That would give $6,000 for those items and the remaining $4000 for everything else. A $5000 budget would give $3000 for these top three priorities and $2000 for everything else. All doable depending on what you are willing to give and take. If you need help with planning a perfect elopement at a set cost, I would love to help you.
Choosing your Vendors
After settling on a budget that you both feel good about and a location of your dreams, it is time to choose your wedding vendors. An elopement is definitely a more personal experience so it is important to not only choose vendors whose work you admire but also who you work well with. No one wants to remember “that one” vendor at your elopement that just made things less than ideal. For me (although it was a wedding) I didn’t put enough thought into our DJ and I remember how they made me feel to this day. I still remember the day fondly but there is just that one little annoyance in the story that just is a good reminder to choose my people wisely for events (and otherwise).
Decide where you need vendors
First, from your priority list, decide what vendors you need for the elopement. Usually this is pretty minimal at an elopement but still necessary. Examples might include a hair artist, make up artist, ceremony stylist, photographer, videographer, florist, officiant, musician.
Intentionally Choose your Vendors
Next start researching your vendors and reaching out to them to see how you fit. While they obviously need to be available on your day, have work that you admire and be within budget, they also need to mesh well with you as a couple.
Meet in person or on a video chat if you can so that you know their vibe and overall feel. In my opinion, it is more important to choose someone who you like and feel is a good fit than it is to be exactly in budget. If the only person you like is too far out of budget, maybe ask them for recommendations of people like them. A good wedding vendor is never offended by saying “we love you but you are out of our budget.” I personally appreciate this honesty and love either helping my couples by creating a custom package in budget or recommending a close friend that may be in their price point.
When you find the right vendor, book them! Don’t wait around as hard as it is to pull the trigger. Ask them if they have recommendations for other vendors you need to. Sometimes if you work with multiple preferred vendors, you can get special pricing! Often times, you can find a vendor willing to do multiple jobs, eliminating the job and cost of finding additional vendors. For example, your hair and make up artist could be from the same salon or even the same person. Or your photographer could help with styling your after-ceremony picnic (speaking from personal experience- we love helping you and definitely know how to make things pretty visually).
Choose Your Elopement Attire
Obviously, whatever you choose to wear should be true to your style and the vibe that you want. However, when choosing what you will wear to your elopement, keep the location in mind too. Most of the time, epic photography is a must at elopements, which usually means a little bit of adventuring is in order. Think about the natural elements of the area you choose to elope and how it could effect your dress or suit.
As a general rule, don’t pay a ton of money for a dress that you would be devastated to get dirty- it’s inevitable. Think about the materials of your attire and the location surroundings. Tulle in the desert, for example, is not the greatest idea as jumping cacti and stickers tend to get stuck (or make you get stuck) in the layers. I also don’t recommend super heavy crepe fabric in red rock dust or long trains on a muddy beach day. While everything is okay if it’s you, just think about the location before you say yes to the dress.
A Wedding Dress Tip
Here’s a trick I use to get from the car to the ceremony location. Bring a sheet with a hole cut in the middle. Step in the middle of the hole and hold the sides of the sheet so that your dress is all encased. When you are ready to take photos, loose the sheet and your dress is clean and safe. This isn’t fool proof as we do a lot of moving in photos. Dirt is, again, inevitable but this helps.
For suits or tuxes, the same idea applies but is less likely to get super dirty. The most important thing here is footwear. Note that rented shoes that come with tuxes are almost always slippery with no traction. I would definitely bring your own shoes or boots for adventuring.
Choosing Your Footwear
That brings me to this point: footwear. In most of my elopements, couples tend to wear hiking boots. There are super cute ones that make for great photos but also, your traditional ones are always my favorite photos. There’s nothing cuter than the quintessential hiking boot elopement shot! Just make sure if you do get new boots, that you break them in before the day itself. If your elopement is on the coast, boots are great for the winter and spring. I love a good bare foot beach moment in the summer.
Do your Research: Making it Official
This section is for eloping or getting married in Washington or Oregon. The laws are probably similar in your state too, just do your research!
After you decide on your location, you will need to apply for a marriage license in the location’s county. This needs to happen at least three days before your elopement and is good for sixty days. Some locations allow you to apply online or by phone and have your application mailed to you. Other counties require you to come to the clerk’s office and fill out the application or show proof of identity in person. They will give you a marriage license that will need to be completed at your ceremony and returned to the office by your officiant.
You need two witnesses in addition to your officiant in the states of Washington and Oregon present at your ceremony. This can even be your photographer or a bystander- just two people that saw you get married. After your ceremony, your officiant will then mail or deliver the license back to the clerk’s office and you are officially married!
Again, head to the county clerk’s website specific to the location (not your hometown, but where you do the ceremony) to research the exact steps to apply for and obtain a license. They will also list fees, any specific requirements like age or witnesses and instructions for returning the license.
Craft your Perfect Day
Choose Activities True to you
At this point, you’ve planned the perfect day, you have lodging, vendors, you’ve researched license requirements and now you are ready to add those special touches that make your elopement even more yours. Sit down together and think about all the things that you love to do together. Do you love testing new restaurants or coffee shops? Are you super into hiking or surfing? Do you have dreams of jumping out of a plane or feeding refuge animals? Do you prefer to sit in and watch hours of a tv show? The world is your oyster here. List out your absolute favorite things to do and plan them on or around your elopement day.
This might be traveling for a honeymoon but often times, if your elopement ceremony is in a fun, different location, you are planning to stay a couple of days. Make it worth it, make it memorable and about you two as a couple. If I were to plan a perfect elopement, here are a couple ideas (also true to my husband and I so cater it to you!).
Some Elopement Ideas to get you Started
Number 1: Cape Kiwanda.
Have a beautiful ceremony and champagne toast picnic on the beach at sunset (I know a great secluded spot). Stay at the luxurious Headlands Lodge for a couple nights. Eat a the lodge and the Pelican for dinners. Grab coffee and a danish in the mornings before a beach walk at Stimulus Coffee. Schedule a couples massage and plenty of hot tub time at the Lodge. Maybe even book a surf lesson on the beach. (I added that one to seem adventurous but I personally would stop at massage).
Number 2: Mt. Rainier.
Book an A-frame cabin at Packwood for the night before your wedding (a lot of them have outdoor hot tubs). Then get married at Sunrise on the iconic Sunrise trail. Or flip it and stay the night after your ceremony on the Paradise trail for epic wildflowers and views. After, head to Seattle for a couple of nights and enjoy the city. Go see a Mariners game, visit Pike Place and drink way too much coffee.
Number 3: Smith Rock.
Plan a sunset ceremony at Smith Rock. Stay in the tiny western town of Sisters where you can walk literally everywhere. Plan a couple of hikes in the Sisters wilderness area. Make sure you get up early for the best coffee ever at Sisters Coffee Company. Can you tell we life coffee? Grab dinner at the Ski Inn or head to Black Butte lodge for a “fancier” vibe. See a Smith Rock Elopement here.
Number 4: Hug Point, Arch Cape.
Plan your ceremony and a little post ceremony toast and cake for low tide at Hug Point. Stay at the Arch Cape Lofts and head into Cannon Beach for shopping and dinner at the Cannon Beach Smokehouse. I definitely recommend a beach walk at Haystack Rock and a trip to the Sleepy Monk coffee house. See a Hug Point Elopement here.
Number 5: Korakia Pensione, Palm Springs.
This is a little more bujjee than my previous Pacific Northwest ideas. Stay at and have a candlelit ceremony in the courtyard at Korakia Pensione. Take a hiking day trip out to Joshua Tree and come back into town for a delicius dinner at Birba. Have breakfast at Cheekys at least once. Go shopping downtown (don’t miss the Mohave Market) and grab a drink rooftop at the Rowan. See a Korakia Elopement here.
I hope that gave you some ideas and helpful information about how to even go about eloping. Remember that ultimately, an elopement is about the love you share. Start there and everything else will just feel right and fall into place. Do your research, have a couple of planning and budgeting dates and don’t do anything that doesn’t point to who you are as a couple. You know I wouldn’t be writing this if I didn’t already have your back. If you need help planning and photographing your elopement, I would love to chat and see if we are a good fit. Until then, happy planning!
