I am a firm believer that your wedding is YOURS. I know the wedding indistrie is tilting to elopements and I honestly love it. If you aren’t wanting to spend too much money, want to be stress free and focused on the person you are marrying, then maybe eloping is for you! However I would never try to push you one way or the other. I am going to list my options of each after capturing both and having a large wedding myself.

Large Wedding: When I was getting married my husband (to be) and I sat down and chatted on what we were wanting. Honestly he had little to no opinion and I loved that haha. So we went over how much family and friends we had, what our budget was and what our priorities were. In the end we came down with this as our list of must haves, each of us in wedding attire, our close family and friends able to attend and an amazing photographer so that the day was captured beautifully. The rest wasn’t as important. Now after we figured that out we realized that with our family alone equaling 200 people, that a destination wedding wasn’t in the books. We were happy with that because it meant we could celebrate with loved ones and then peace out and go somewhere beautiful, just the two of us. Our wedding had about 450 guests and a whole lot of stress. It was beautiful and I will cherish it forever, we choose to do it in the winter to still be able to have wedding photos that were not the traditional normal ones I was used to seeing. Although after capturing intimate weddings I realize I may have preferred it to my massive busy day. I will talk more at the end of my personal “dream” wedding. Don’t just take my advice though, I have had so many brides who will happily take the stress and busyness of the day to be able to have everyone they love present for the entire day of magic and love and celebration.

Elopement: You have gotten engaged to the man of your dreams! Now it is time to start planning. Now if a low stress and low budget is in your list then an intimate wedding or elopement can be perfect! You only have one wedding day and it truly is special, so I encourage you to spend some time planning out your day. It is surprising how many breath taking locations can be within a few hours drive of you. Find a mountain top or ocean or even a forest as your ceremony, spend your budget on florals and a photographer. It is surprising how breathtaking nature already is, and after you style a simple floral arrangement or two it can become a dream venue location! Find a photographer who’s style you love and personality you enjoy! This is so important as he or she will be with you for the entire day of your wedding! Now either your photographer or the two of you can location scout ahead of time and find some secluded areas perfect for portraits! Bring some music, a bottle of champagne and a blanket and after your say your vows surrounded by your closest family and friends, your now spouse and you can run off to enjoy the rest of your evening together, relaxed and capturing the sunset. This is perfect if you choose to do it this way, especially if you add a videographer to your budget. Because later down the road when you have the budget you can have a reception to celebrate with everyone and share the images and video of your special day! The amount of brides who have gushed about their elopement choices have been amazing!

Now my dream wedding: I am a sucker for romance and adventure and would of loved to get married at the top of a mountain. I also am so grateful I had everyone I love at my wedding to celebrate and in many ways to say thank you for the role they played in my husband or my life. This is why if I was planning my wedding day today, I would of done it very close by, probably tumbler ridge or in the Pine Pass. I would of set up chairs over looking the horizon on top of a mountain to seat 50 of my closet family and friends. We would all hike up to the top at sunrise for a breath taking morning ceremony, then all my family would head back into town for the reception the same day. My hubby and I would then go hike the mountain and maybe stop by a few waterfalls and really just have peace and joy to start off our marriage! I would of then either set up an outdoor ceremony with some twinkly lights hanging over the tables or a simple and cheap hall and have a pig roast or possibly stick with what we did, of buying all the food from our Hutterite Neighbours for some cheap delicious food! This would then still create a day of celebration with all my family, but would include a more relaxing ceremony and portrait time where we would invest in an incredible photographer and just forget she was there as we laughed and climbed the mountain tops for incredible, unforgettable photos of our day. Can you tell photos are important to me haha? In all honesty though, invest in a photographer, you may think you are okay going cheap but I have had an overwhelming amount of brides message me saying their biggest regret was not investing in a professional, because they can never re do their wedding day and have nothing they would want to show their family or children.

Okay, now enough about wedding planning, lets take a look at Jenni and Curtiss Elopement