How to Elope at Home

Although many states are slowly emerging from Safer at Home mandates, many wedding venues are still not open yet. So how does one still celebrate such a monumental day? It’s time to explore how to elope at home, and how this format of gathering can create an intimate and cherished memory.

Erin Marton Photography

As an intimate and small wedding planner in Los Angeles, I’ve had experiences planning weddings in a variety of locations. Yes, including personal homes and backyards! These location choices bring such unique and personal fondness to the memories created on your wedding day, as well as a few logistical conundrums.

First, let’s look at a few important elements that make up gathering together safely and explore the options and implications for doing so in your home.

Consider Your Space

You will first want to take a look at the options you have access to. Possibly a family home or backyard, your apartment living room, porch, or balcony all can provide a sacred space for your to begin your marriage journey together.

Does the space require any work before it is ready? Do you need to help mom with some gardening work? Or move all your furniture out to add a new coat of paint to your walls? Really take the time to think about what would work best for the backdrop. A plain white wall might feel boring, but you can always add in your personalities with colors, textures, and patterns. Take some craft paper and cut-out beautiful hearts to create an ombre wall appliqué. Give some old curtains new life by added a fringe pattern to the second half for a flowy effect. Some yarn can become a beautiful macramé wall hanging.

Don’t forget to think about the pre-wedding ceremony rituals. Where will you get ready? Does your bedroom or a similar space offer enough light? Will you get ready separately or together? Elements to consider:

• Space to hang your dress
• Table or shelf to hold a computer if you plan to live-stream the ceremony
• Room for chairs if any family attending

Solutions for Safety

This is a huge element that will require an excellent wedding day team to execute. The health and safety of you and your guests is tantamount, so please make sure you are involving individuals who have the knowledge and experience to assist.

The biggest piece of your day rests on this, are you currently living with family members who can be in attendance? If you want to include other individuals you do not currently live with please do so with CAUTION following all guidelines from your county. Things to seriously consider:

• In your county, how many guests can legally gather together?
• Is it required to do temperature checks?
• Are there family members whose health is at risk and cannot attend (Can you set up a Zoom or live stream option for them? Does the space allow them to sit far enough away or separated by glass by sitting indoors?)
• Is it safe to have guests gather around your home? (Do you have any neighbors who might already be ill or who are high-risk?)
• What if guests need to use the restroom? (Is there something accessible? Is it safe for them to be in another person’s home?)

Create a Celebration

What does it mean to you to gather and celebrate? Does a wedding only happen/count if guests can hear the vows? Are you only married if you get to have a dance party later that night? This time in our world and society is pushing us towards a collective change in expectations of what a wedding day looks like and feels like. To me, it feels like you celebrating all your relationships! How can we safely do this for the time being?

• Guests can do a drive-by parade in celebration. By asking them to stay in their cars you are emphasizing safety for you and for them!
• Create a pop-up experience for guests to enjoy. There are many skilled and talented performers out there who are out of work and want to spread some joy! Add a unique performance your guests can watch, maybe flowers they can take home, or an experience they can add to.
• Ask your guests to send in pre-recorded well wishes, handwritten letters, or other heartfelt items to you can enjoy during the celebration.
• Create an intimate experience by streaming the wedding for friends and family. Being able to see other’s faces during this time can bring light and levity to a dark time.

Lean into Logistics

If you’ve already been planning a wedding, you know how much hard work goes into each decision made. As a wedding planner and designer my goal is to help you forget about the logistics on the day of your wedding so you can enjoy it like a guest. Having a vendor team you can rely on prior to the wedding day will allow you peace of mind.

You don’t want to forget about some important elements and conversations you need to have about logistics before saying “I do”! Make sure you have your marriage license already prior to the ceremony, and a good reliable pen ready afterwards for your witnesses and officiant to sign.

• Can your officiant physically be present, but socially distance themselves with a mask on? Can they stand off to the side?
• Is your photographer comfortable taking pictures? As you interview potential photographers, ask to see several portfolios of group shots to evaluate together how to achieve the look you are going for. Are they comfortable posing individuals 6 feet apart if they are not in a family group together?
• How many vendors do you need on-site to set-up, clean, serve, bus, and tear down? Do these need to fit into your headcount count for legal gatherings? Will they all be onsite during the entirety of the event?
• How do you budget for a small wedding at home realistically?

How to Elope at Home: Real Brides Share

I am so grateful for two Los Angeles brides, Emily and Lauren, who shared with me about their elopement at home experience. Both went from planning big traditional weddings to a more intimate wedding celebration.

Emily + Matthew

What was your original wedding plan? 

We were planning a pretty large ceremony and reception. Our guest list was roughly 150 people since we both have large family and friend groups. We got engaged last July, and from July until March it was easy, perfect planning. Everything went so well. I was not stressed! Both of us joke that it was so stress-free until we had to cancel the wedding.

What made you decide to elope?

We went through do we want to do an elopement now and then still plan to get re-married for the crowd of friends and family? And it boiled down to no – we just wanted to get married. At that point, we said we are ready! Especially a time like this, we really wanted to start out life together.

How many guests did you have in attendance?

We had 12 guests, just our immediate family (parents and siblings).

Kami Arant Photography

What type of wedding vendors did you use?

We were trying to keep it under 15 people, including our vendors. Our photographer was very open and accommodating of our new intimate wedding plan. We also had our minister, and our caterer dropped off all the food family style.

What made the day unique and special?

It took some convincing on my end, because I was originally thinking “who cares” there are only 10 people there do we really need to do toasts? Do we need to do first dances? But after we talked about it, we decided to still do all that. We did the Father-daughter dance, and I was really nervous about that because we didn’t practice. But it made it so much nicer because there were so few people there.

Kami Arant Photography

We still included the maid of honor and best man toasts, and that turned into everyone there giving a toast. We were so comfortable allowing that to happen, we wouldn’t have done that at a larger wedding. It was nice getting to do that, just saying today I am over it and all the control went out the window, allowing our family members to share a moment together.

We held the wedding in my parent’s backyard, the house I grew up in. It was intimate and beautiful. Even just walking back into my parent’s house to pick up my stuff after the honeymoon, I was overcome with emotion knowing “I got married here”. Anyone with massive families, I really think that it’s such a solid outcome and option to do it. You get more done. 

I said that throughout the day, I don’t feel like I’m lacking anything. I’m glad there are not so many people, because I was worried about messing up the vows.

Kami Arant Photography

Lauren + Nick

What was your original wedding plan?

We were supposed to get married mid-June at a venue in Camarillo. We had planned for it to be a weekend trip with all our guests since we don’t live in that area. For our original plan, we invited 225 people to the wedding and had all our vendors booked. Photographer, Videographer, Coordinator, Catering, Florist, and were just about to book rentals with the venue. 

What made you decide to elope?

We are very traditional, so we weren’t living together and we were waiting to get married to start a new chapter in our lives. We didn’t want to delay getting married. It was also important for us to take into account the safety of our guests, family members, and vendors. Trying to decide what would be the best option.

We opted for the small backyard wedding at his family’s home, and plan to have a follow-up anniversary wedding celebration next year around the same date. In making our decision, we wanted to be mindful of our vendors, this is not easy for anyone, especially those in the wedding industry. We thought it would be best to do a small wedding now and have a bigger celebration later to still work with them. 

How many guests did you have in attendance?

15 guests, including the officiant. Most were immediate family members, my best friend who took wedding photos, and my husband’s best friend. My parents and grandparents are high risk, so we asked guests outside of our family to refrain from going out and exposing themselves for the two weeks before the wedding.

Evangeline Eo Photography

What type of wedding vendors did you use?

We had our officiant and photographer. We ordered and picked up food from a local restaurant to have a backyard BBQ.

What made the day unique and special?

We tried to mimic as much of a traditional wedding day as possible. We didn’t see each other until I walked down the aisle. A friend of mine is in the baking phase of pandemic life so we asked her if she would bake us a cake, so we did a cake cutting. We did our first dance as husband and wife and did have a little bit of dancing towards the end of the night underneath the string lights outside.

We still had our guests Zoom in with us. By using a separate phone on the Zoom call we were able to share multiple angles during the ceremony to see our faces and expressions not just our backs. This allowed our guests to see the parts of the wedding that they don’t usually see. And getting to see who was there afterward was super exciting.

Evangeline Eo Photography

Our approach was to be open with the experiences. Typically the wedding is about the bride and groom. We knew no matter what it’s going to be special, but instead of focusing on everyone serving us, maybe this is could be our way to serve and focus on our family as our first act together as a married couple. 

When we were doing the food, we were concerned about safety for the buffet-style food. We didn’t want our guests to all touch the serving utensils. So we decided to serve the food to our guests. We wanted to honor our parents, grandparents, as a way to say thank you! 

Putting it all Together

I’m sure your mind is swimming right about now. I know there are so many new things to consider when planning to elope at home! Your wedding day absolutely deserves the same thought, care, and attention it would have received before the global pandemic started. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a trusted professional planner in your back pocket to help with the things you don’t know you don’t know? I’m here to extend partnership in the form of consultations to any couples who are wanting guidance in exploring how to elope at home.

You don’t have to feel the weight of curating a fully controlled experience. Our intention is not to manufacture that wedding feeling, simply because you can’t have the one you had dreamt of. You still have many options and decisions to make to create a truly unique event. 

I look forward to the days when we return to celebrating weddings of all shapes and sizes! But for today I am thrilled to be able to share the joy of small weddings with the vibrant city of Los Angeles.