How to Build a Wedding - Elopements & Micro-Weddings, the Grand Soireé, and Everything in Between
I was never that child that spent much time marrying my dolls or playing ‘wedding’ - I never really thought or dreamed much about what my wedding day would look like. Like many children of divorce, marriage seemed stressful and daunting to me and the wedding day an elaborate (and expensive) production more like theatre than anything else. Though I’ve always been a sucker for a rom-com and am an avowed lifelong hopeless romantic, my daydreaming never really extended to the prospect of my own wedding day.
But then 12 years ago on that fateful summer day in Hamburg, I met my Michael and, in many many (more than I could have possibly imagined) ways, my world was upended and within weeks I began dreaming in tulle and lace, pearls and flowers and all of those traditional trappings of what makes a wedding.
Obviously the proposal didn’t happen until a couple of years later - our love story could hardly be classed as whirlwind in that sense - but when it did and we began the mammoth task (pre-Pinterest!) of planning a wedding, I realised quite quickly that I actually had no idea of what I wanted my wedding to look like. Spending so many years basically apathetic to weddings meant that we were starting with literally a blank slate. We were relatively young when we got married (it will be our 10 year wedding anniversary in April!) so it wasn’t like either of us had attended many weddings as guests either because we were among the first of our friends to get married!
So with zero expectation or pre-conceptions, perhaps a touch of naivete and NO budget to speak of, a whole load of guest list anxiety, international travel to bear in mind and Michael’s overwhelming fear of public speaking, we decided to skip the big fat wedding and just go it alone - planning an elopement-style, VERY low-budget (all-in we spent less than £2k) wedding and informing our respective families that they were not invited. It went down surprisingly well and I genuinely will forever be grateful for the generosity and support of our amazing parents. They understood and respected that it was our day and gave us the space (and money) to make that happen.
In retrospect, I wonder if my own wedding experience is why I work in the wedding industry now and why I’m constantly delighted and amazed by the INCREDIBLE days I get to capture and be a part of. Every wedding I’ve been lucky enough to be a part of (75 and counting) has felt special and unique and beautiful regardless of whether there were 3 guests or 300. Because each and every one of those 75 weddings was filled to the brim with JOY and love and the dreams of those couples turned into reality by the team of wedding professionals they hired.
I want to share here with you all the ways a wedding can look - how these restrictions announced will never take away from the fact that your wedding is forever and exactly that: YOURS. Have the wedding of your dreams, whatever that means. Have the wedding you never dreamed of, whatever that means.
Have. The. Wedding.
And have me along to capture it for you ;-)
the elopement
“Oh! To rationalize oneself into matrimony...Oh! To decide something so grave in life ‘after mature consideration’! Choose the color of a dress after a thousand hesitations, but for God’s sake, get married without reflecting on it! That’s the grace I wish I wish for you. May you even be so distracted that day that you walk past the registry office without remembering to stop there.
”
the micro-wedding (6-15 guests)
“It is such a happiness when good people get together — and they always do.”
the intimate celebration (20-30 guests)
“Not anyone who says, “I’m going to be
careful and smart in matters of love,”
who says, “I’m going to choose slowly,”
but only those lovers who didn’t choose at all
but were, as it were, chosen
by something invisible and powerful and uncontrollable
and beautiful and possibly even
unsuitable —
only those know what I’m talking about
in this talking about love.”
the grand soireé (infinity & beyond)
“let me be your raincoat
for those frequent rainy days
let me be your dreamboat
when you wanna sail away
let me be your teddy bear
take me with you anywhere
I don’t care
I wanna be yours”
