Why we’re not having a big wedding
*Update 2/11/19: Next month is our 1 year wedding anniversary aaaaand boy did we do things differently than I said in this post!!
-We DID invite immediate family only. My parents, both my sisters, and my niece made it. My brother in law didnt and NONE of Jay’s family did so I was right on that! 5 guests wasnt so bad though.
-We added another dog (Zelda) to our family and so she was also invited…and then we got ANOTHER dog (Blue) after the wedding. Falkor & Zelda were too anxious to really play a role in the big day, so Falkor didnt wear a GoPro.
-We got married in Charleston, not California! Jay decided he would much rather buy a home and get married locally, so the choice was still his (-:
-We didnt go to Norway on the honeymoon but we did spend 2 weeks in Ireland!
-I begged several times to just go to the courthouse and make it official. I just wanted to be his wife faster lol
-We’re going on a month and a half long road trip this summer out west…Including California! We’ll be doing Disneyland & the PCH so we’re still able to check that off the bucketlsit (-;
This will probably come as a shock to some people reading this but Jay and I are not having a big wedding. In fact, we aren’t really having a wedding at all! We’re doing a styled elopement and Falkor is the only invited guest. And its in California. In 2 years.
I’ve been asked by a few people why we decided to do this, and since I want to blog about more personal stuff, I figured blogging about our elopement journey would be perfect! Not everyone is happy with our decision and a few people don’t agree with us calling it an elopement, but its our day and we’re gonna do what ever we want and call it what we want (-;
When Jay and I started to seriously talk about getting married over a year ago, he voiced that he really wanted to have a wedding. I was actually surprised by that but I told him that I really didn’t want one. I wanted to elope, just the two of us, to Ireland. He said no.
So we compromised.
We agreed that if we eloped, he could pick the location and I got to pick the venue. I had a feeling he would say California and I wasn’t wrong! While he’s changed his mind a few times (Austin Texas and then Oslo Norway) we both decided that California would be the best option. Im not the biggest Cali fan, but there is amazing light out there annnnnd Disneyland. I was really against Norway (and people think Im crazy but guys, I just dont care for it!) so I told him we would honeymoon in Europe for 2 weeks and spend 1 week in Norway and 1 week in Ireland again. Pretty sure we’ve got this compromising thing down pat.
I love weddings. I LOVE them, or else I wouldn’t do this as a job, but this is a second marriage for both of us so we’ve already each had a wedding. I didn’t see the need for a 3rd one between the two of us. If we had a wedding it would have to take place in Tampa in order for any of our family to attend – and while I know many incredible wedding professionals in Tampa I absolutely do NOT want to get married there. If we eloped and only invited family, hardly anyone would be able to come. My older sister has a baby and I know its hard to travel with one and Im sure my younger sister wouldnt be able to make it either. Jays father has passed on and his mom is not doing well health wise so we know she wouldnt be able to make such a long trip which would make her and us very sad. Most of his siblings wouldnt be able to and they all have children who they cant leave behind. So it just seemed right to not invite anyone!
Eloping also seems like the right financial choice for us. We dont make a lot of money doing what we do, believe it or not. Uncle Sam makes sure of that (-; I cant stand when people complain about wedding vendors “ripping people off”. A wedding is a luxury and we are so aware of that. Getting MARRIED however, can be as cheap as $10 if you do it at the courthouse! If we invited 150 people to our wedding, most of our budget would get spent on the venue to accommodate that amount and feeding that many people isnt cheap either. Again, we’ve both been there and done it. So this time around, I want to invest our very hard earned money into the things that are important to us. Our photographer and videographers will capture our day in a way that our friends and family will feel like they WERE there with us (-: Plus, Falkor’s going to wear a Gopro so that’ll be interesting!
We also plan on being in California for almost two weeks exploring the national parks and traveling down the Pacific Coast Highway and of course spending a minimum of 3 days at Disneyland (-; I want to make the most amazing memories with Jay and starting our marriage off with an incredible vacation seems like a great idea! If we had a traditional wedding, we wouldn’t be able to do this.
