My husband and I eloped when we were 19 and just celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary. My parents were fine with it (my parents married when my mother was 17), but my in laws were decidedly not fine with it. They came around when we said we declined to “prayerfully consider” an annulment. We then had a big church wedding because my dad wanted to walk me down the aisle.
Why did we do it? Who knows. We were young, in love, and had a three-day weekend in front of us. Seemed like a good idea at the time.
While I don’t regret it, I do regret upsetting my in-laws, with whom I am quite close now.
My brother also eloped. He and his then-girlfriend were living together and they got married in Vegas one weekend. They didn’t tell anyone (well, my brother told me) and went on to have a lovely ceremony a year later. The parents still don’t know about the earlier wedding.
“So are you saying that parents should not even let their kids know that they would be sad and perhaps hurt not to witness their wedding if they hear the kids will elope before hand? I think you can tell them that in a way that is not manipulative or guilt-inducing.”
“I am hurt.” is manipulative.
Sad is not manipulative but hurt is? So parents are not allowed to tell an adult child that something was done that hurts their feelings or makes them upset? The adult kid is free to ignore the hurt. I am assuming the kids and parents have a decent relationship and the parents are not toxic.
I still regret not attending my college graduation ceremony. I was young and stupid. The ceremony was not cool , or so my friends and I thought. Neither parent graduated from college. Now that I am much older and a parent myself, I get that I kept them from something that may have been important to them seeing. My dad kept little , but in going through his things, he had held onto my freshman beanie from my college. And a not so selective college to boot. I cried . My parents did attend my graduate school ceremony. I was a few years older and thankful that I included them then.
I see nothing wrong (or manipulative) in expressing that you would be sad to miss a child’s wedding. It is a major milestone that many parents would love to see!
Sometimes there are good reasons for a couple to elope. But people don’t always understand this.
My parents eloped because my mother’s family couldn’t afford to pay for a wedding. Not even a small one. (This was back in the time when the bride’s family always paid.) For the rest of their lives, my father’s family resented the fact that they had not been able to see him get married. But what choice did my parents have?
A generation later, my husband and I wanted to elope, but we were talked out of it by our parents. Bad choice. We both had divorced parents, and three of our four parents had remarried. So what our wedding mostly consisted of was seven extremely uncomfortable people having to spend a long time in a room with other people whom they couldn’t stand. It was a most unpleasant experience, and to this day I resent the fact that we were pressured into it when we could have had a nice, low-stress courthouse wedding instead.
My daughter had an actual wedding with a white dress and a DJ and cake and flowers and all that, but I would have been just as glad if she had eloped. And if my son and his girlfriend want to elope, that’s fine with me.
i know that people and families are very different, but for me, my marriage is not just between me and DH. When we planned our wedding, I knew that I wanted our relationship and our home to be a source of joy and comfort for all our family and close friends. Also, I knew that our marriage (and eventually our kids) would need the help and support of our parents, siblings and friends, and that our lives would be so much richer as part of that larger family and community. So, I wanted all those people to be there at the beginning, to witness our vows and be welcomed to be part of this thing with us.
There have been many times when DH and I helped a parent or sibling, or when DH helped my sister, I his brother etc. I don’t want to tell the whole story, but at the hardest time in our marriage, DH’s parents carried us. As our parents get older, I’m sure there will be times when they need us just as much.
To me, inviting these people to our wedding ceremony was a symbol of the commitment we were making to them, and vice versa.
If our kids didn’t want parents and siblings at their weddings, I would be worried, unless they had discussed it with us and made us feel like we were still going to be part of their new family. I guess it’s not really the wedding ceremony I want to be a part of, and not the party, but their lives.
Before considering any such conversation, you might want to try to find out why your child wants to elope. There may be a very good reason – and it could be something about your child’s partner that you know nothing about, like an abusive parent, an immediate family member with a drinking problem who might disrupt the wedding day, extreme shyness that would make a wedding in front of people an unbearable ordeal, or even simply an inability to get time off from a new job for a wedding and all the related events. Would you really want to pressure your child into having a wedding that would cause distress to his/her partner or other people?
Hopefully, the adult child has already given their parent/s an explanation for wanting/needing to elope when the subject initially came up.
I am still so torn about what to say if anything. i wish I could pinpoint what my feelings are but to clear up things …
He has met her parents and grandparents many times. He thinks her family is as wonderful as ours – his words. Again, his idea – we are sharing an Airbnb with her family for T’giving. It’ll be the first time we meet them, and that ds1 meets her brother, with whom she is very close. In fact, she flew to Europe last week to meet the woman to whom her older brother is about to propose. Dysfunctional/divorced family is not the issue. Clearly, he thinks it’s important to bring our families together. I really don’t feel like eloping is a way of avoiding all of us.
We previously had discussed – for years – that I was fine with the boys eloping. We aren’t churchgoers so a religious ceremony just isn’t important to me at all, though if their significant other wanted one I’d be fine with that. When he told me Saturday about the idea of them eloping here’s what he said … they aren’t into the whole elaborate ceremony thing. They aren’t going to Vegas and get married in front of Elvis; they just want to do something at the courthouse or if they have a friend who is ordained maybe they’d have him/her do it. He didn’t express a timeline, but the way he brought it up it made me feel like he wouldn’t have mentioned it if it wasn’t on the horizon. He also said that he knows that I would like to throw a big party if there’s an elopement and that he is good with that.
We also talked about the change in her long-term plans. She had planned to go to law school in the fall so that they would live apart for a year while he finished his program. Now, she won’t apply for another year so that she’ll stay with him while he finishes his master’s, then he’ll relocate with her wherever she lands for the three years of law school (he is hoping they end up in our hometown, which has an excellent law school!). He then talked about how he would like for them to settle down near one of the families. Anyway, I say all this because I truly don’t think it’s to avoid some odd family dynamic; we are all close.
OK, as I type this I am starting to home in on what is bothering me. I think that, in a way, because he feels so comfortable sharing with me that maybe I feel a little taken for granted? That he thinks, I know mom loves me and will be good with whatever … assuming how I would feel. Maybe I feel a bit taken advantage of? There are a couple of issues in the past month surrounding him that have made me wonder why, frankly, he isn’t more generous of spirit. I fronted him out directly about one of those things and indirectly about another so maybe this is the straw that broke the camel’s back and it’s cumulative and that’s what’s bothering me … And we are close as a family. My dad is 91yo and not in great health; if this is the one, why hasn’t he worked to make sure my parents get to meet her, before it’s too late?
As you can see, I remain bothered and conflicted.
Sorry you are having such a hard time. You say, “we previously had discussed-for years-that I was fine with the boys eloping.”. Maybe he thinks it is no big deal to you?
I agree. I think maybe his idea of elope and mine aren’t the same. I meant that I didn’t care about all the pomp and circumstance. It never occurred to me that I wouldn’t be at whatever little thing they did!
So maybe just share that with him, and that your parents would really appreciate meeting his fiancée.
If he doesn’t know your feelings about not witnessing his wedding – or if previous conversations have led him to believe that this is not important to you – then it makes sense that he wouldn’t take it into consideration. I don’t think it even reflects a lack of generosity of spirit. It may just reflect crossed signals.
On the other hand, there may still be impediments, especially with a fiancee who still has law school to pay for. Is it possible to have a wedding that only includes immediate family but is cheap?
I bring this up because in my daughter’s case, it was not possible to have a cheap wedding for immediate family only. She married a man from a big family (he’s one of six siblings, and some of his siblings have spouses and children). Just including his immediate family meant that the wedding had to be held in a commercial venue. Nobody’s home was large enough to accommodate the mob.
I think you owe it to both of you to be honest with him. There may not be another wedding (lets hope not) for him to do it over.
I really like what @3SailAway wrote. It may be some of cultural difference between us on CC. Western culture tends to think marriage is between two people, and Eastern culture tends to think it is between 2 families.
My family is kind of in-between. I don’t butt into a lot of my kids’ business unless they ask me to, but they know we celebrate all milestones together.
I would prefer my kids have a wedding celebration of sorts, and to be included in it, but if they decided not to do that, it would not be a huge issue. I have not said anything to any of them about eloping or not.
As far as any other parents, how they feel is not particularly controllable and how to best handle that is really up to the individual. The best course of action (or not) really depends on individuals and family relationships.
I talked to him. We’re good. 
Thanks for letting me work through this.
Meaning? He is not planning to elope without you getting to witness? Or that you are now OK with him eloping without you?
Meaning that I let him know that I think we had different ideas about what it means to elope and that I’d like to be there but I know that if I’m not it’s not a reflection of our relationship.
Thanks for the update. That sounds like the perfect way to put it! Hopefully, it will work out for you to be there.
They’ll be attending a wedding soon in my family, and I think they’ll see how it’s for all the other people, too, and not just the couple getting married. They both have been in wedding parties at this point, and I totally get that they don’t want all the fuss around a big wedding. I feel like that piece of the decision is well-informed and totally support that decision. I do hope we can be at whatever they eventually plan. One thing I did find out is that it’s not in the immediate future so who knows how it will all play out?