Yes I eloped … & No I don’t regret it …

Weddings are fun. I have been a bridesmaid more times than I can count and I have been to over 15 weddings in just the last 3 years. I like weddings.

Sometimes juggling my schedule has been a bit of a challenge, especially because in Tunisia, where I was born, weddings can be as long as a week. So when a friend or a family member gets married, you carve out two weeks of your life to make it all happen, and if you miss even one event, it is held against you for like … forever.

So perhaps all the pressure of figuring things out as a guest has made me rethink a week celebration when it came to my wedding. And perhaps listening to my friends and family struggle with the stress of who to invite, where to have the wedding, what food to serve etc etc … and then all the guests's comments ... is what made me think: WHY NOT ELOPE?

Yes I wouldn’t get to be the center of attention for a day … or a week …. Yes I wouldn’t get to wear a fancy white dress and show it off to hundreds of guests … And yes I wouldn’t get to post wedding pics for a year because I would only have 20 …

Nothing too earth shattering, right?

But more importantly it meant we wouldn’t have to worry about friends and family having to move mountains to fit our life event into their busy life … We wouldn’t have to stress about finding the perfect destination that would work best for 90% of our friends and family scattered all over three continents and numerous states … We wouldn’t have to worry about a thing …

—> ALL I HAD TO WORRY ABOUT WAS THE GROOM SHOWING UP … and thankfully HE DID -:)

Our first heart as Husband and Wife

Our awesome last minute officiant Caryn

Our first kiss

Followed by our first hug

Our makeshift aisle

Our first official "wedding photo"

our son, step-son, witness and photographer and adorable flower boy

So yes, you might have noticed that it was kind of all about us … But isn’t getting married all about us, the bride and groom? Why is it that everyone thinks they should be included in the wedding if we just happened to want something intimate and stress free and spontaneous?

I am not sure why … I am still trying to figure that out. Does it make me a monster? I hope not ... Does it mean I enjoyed hurting people's feelings, and especially some close family members? ...Definitely not ... But what I know for a fact is that I have never interjected in my family or friend’s wedding plans. If my opinion was asked, I gave it. If it wasn’t, I just showed up at the date and time asked, and smiled for the photos. So why can't it be the same when you elope?

Now I will admit this. I had second thoughts because many of my married girlfriends said “You will regret this Sara, trust me.”

But then I thought it through. How would they know if I would or would not regret it? None of them had eloped. They all had big weddings. They couldn’t possibly know…. So I started looking online for answers: blogs, articles … Maybe Google would have a clear answer. Google has all the answers, right?

But it didn’t. It just had more opinions.

I finally realized that the only who would have the answer was me .. and him -:) It was a decision my fiancé and I should make, just the two of us, no second opinions, no blog opinions, just us.

So we left NYC happily engaged August 13th and by the time we got to our new home in California 10 days later, we were happily married. Happy being the key word here :-) There was no specific plan, there was no audience, there was no fancy dress or suit. Just two people in love, saying I do, with the Grand Teton mountain as our backdrop and a $35 sunflower bouquet from the grocery store ...

It was perfect.