4 Australians share why they chose to elope
PHOTOGRAPHY BY KARISSA RUSS
WORDS BY MAGGIE ZHOU
“Most people didn’t even know we were engaged, let alone getting married.”
There’s almost nothing I enjoy more than attending a good wedding. It might be the bank of romcoms I’ve grown up watching or the fact that I’m the main beneficiary of an open bar and generous hors d’oeuvres, but weddings ooze magic for me.
It’s not only magic they exude, though. The haemorrhaging of money and high-intensity stress is expected on a couple’s special day. As much as we fawn over pre-loved wedding gowns and unconventional shoots, there’s no tip-toeing over the pressure cooker parts of wedding culture.
Interested to hear how others navigate the world? Head to our Life section.
That’s why a growing number of Australians are choosing to elope instead of throwing a wedding. Elopements are typically as personal as the couple at the centre of them. While the term traditionally was used to describe the act of running away and getting married without the knowledge of your nearest and dearest, eloping has expanded as an umbrella category for small, intimate ceremonies, usually with only the celebrant or a couple of guests in attendance.
So what does the road less taken actually look like? Four Australian creatives share the stories and financial costs of their very own elopement below.
Paris Johnson, she/her, Country Road’s Head Stylist
Why did you choose an elopement over a wedding?
My partner Ben and I have a very close-knit relationship where we do most of our lives together so this felt like a natural extension. We married just us in the way we desired, low-key and easy. We have a penchant for travelling and finding obscure places to eat our supermarket picnic dinners and drink sangria, so that was our theme for the day.
Another (rather huge) factor was the anxiety of picking people to join us at the smaller wedding had we chosen to marry back home. This stress versus the idea of a dinner party by ourselves in the Spanish heat was a pretty easy decision.
When and where did you get eloped?
We wed in Menorca, Spain on July 22, 2022. I have a weird affinity with the numbers two and seven so auspiciously chose 22/07/22.
Tell us about the big day!
We timed the ceremony around our baby Grays’s first nap. She slept in the car on the way to the quarry so was happy when she awakened. It was extremely hot, being Spain in July, so we got changed in the car park and met our photographer in the quarry to scout our location. We spoke our vows in earshot of no one and, considering we wrote them on hotel stationary a few nights before, we really got our meaning out there! The photos and vows took just an hour before we retired to our villa and FaceTimed our family and returned to regular holiday programming.
Our photographer Rebeca, a Menorcan local, returned once we’d put Gray to bed for the night. We had a catered dinner party of just us two by our pool with cocktails, listening to Ben’s playlist. We had all the local Spanish treats we loved at the dinner: saucisson (sausage), chips, peppers and Iberico ham.
I’d prepared for the trip by having a Mecca tutorial on how one does their make-up in extreme heat and I designed my own dress and had our garment technician from work create it with Jil Sander heels. We’d had Bens’s suit tailored by P. Johnson before COVID hit when we’d originated this plan, so it had to be dusted off. I had a Jacquemus dress for our dinner and wore Cult Gaia earrings. I found a little grandma on Etsy who hand-stitched Gray’s romper with our initials sewn into the collar as a momento.
Do you have a favourite, stand-out memory from the day?
I don’t have a particular memory but I have a happy heart from the good day. We fell in love with this local licorice and eucalyptus frozen cocktail, we danced to Dallas Green, we swam in 35-degree heat and Gray bobbed in her floaties. All in all, it was another day of our holiday, but a life memory to share with Gray one day.
Could you please give us a rough cost breakdown?
Inclusive of outfits, it would’ve come to around $5,000. But we were also overseas on a month-long trip so flights and accommodation were part of the holiday.
Any advice for others considering an elopement?
Currently, I am living through the organisation and stressors of another family member’s wedding and it reiterates why our decision worked for us. My partner and I are private people and sharing our vows and voicing our feelings together was more intimate than if we did it with others. Too often we get caught up in what we should do rather than what we want to do when getting married.
Bianca O’Neill, she/her, Fashion Journal’s Senior Industry Columnist
Why did you choose an elopement over a wedding?
I’m Italian, he’s Irish [and] it was going to be a huge nightmare of a wedding with 500 drunk guests. But on a serious note, I was never the girl who dreamed of a wedding. The whole idea of it gives me hives, even now, 10 years later!
When and where did you get eloped?
October 4, 2012. We travelled to Vegas and booked the famous little white wedding chapel where Joan Rivers and Michael Jordan did their own quickie weddings!
Tell us about the big day!
Only four people were there – us, my bestie and his brother. It was a genuine elopement, most people didn’t even know we were engaged, let alone getting married. The night before I had a HUGE Vegas bust out with my bestie and almost didn’t make the wedding – in the photos I look pretty green! You have to first get an official marriage license in a government office where some person behind a desk announces you’re married, then you can zoom off to a chapel and do the fun one. We chose Elvis to walk me down the aisle while singing ‘It’s Now or Never’. He was wearing a gold suit and my bestie bought me a funny blue lace garter in the gift shop as my ‘something blue’.
It was pre-iPhones so we got the photo package which was hilarious because they have this room of backgrounds and pose you in these awkward stances; we were giggling the whole time. The photos are incredible, very Russian-wedding-photo-meme style. We decided to splash out after and treat the wedding party (yep, all four of us) to Nobu. Our honeymoon was a road trip from Vegas to New Orleans through the desert and Texas (and as a sci-fi geek, included essential stops at Roswell and Nasa), followed by a few days in New York.
Do you have a favourite, stand-out memory from the day?
After Nobu, my husband and I wandered through the Vegas lights, drank too many cocktails and took funny selfies playing slot machines. It was just so free and fun, and we had the best night together. We called our parents from our little suite we splashed out on at the Bellagio. They took the news remarkably well from memory!
Could you please give us a rough cost breakdown?
It was possibly the cheapest wedding ever, at $350 including the photo package and Elvis. My cute Asos dress cost $84, shoes were probably about $100 – I still have the dress and my silver glitter platforms! Obviously, Nobu was the splash-out, I think it came to about $1,000 for four.
I don’t remember the cost of the marriage license, but from memory, it was about $100. Our Bellagio room was exy at the time for us, about $400 for the one night – but lounging by the gorgeous pool the next day, hungover, with my new hubby was one of those lifelong memories.
Any advice for others considering an elopement?
Do it! Weddings suck, eloping is fun and stress-free, and you can ask your parents for your wedding money to go towards a house deposit. This is how we bought ourselves our first little one-bedroom apartment!
Aurelia St Clare, she/they, comedian
Why did you choose an elopement over a wedding?
Mostly, we wanted the day to just be about us. Tamara also happened to be on tour in the US at the time so we decided to take the opportunity and live our Vegas elopement fantasy.
When and where did you get eloped?
We eloped on August 14, 2022 at the Little White Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Tell us about the big day!
We started the day off with a big American breakfast at a local diner – I had a breakfast burrito and Tamara ordered the pancake special. We took a nap, then walked to a nearby Sephora and booked a couple of last-minute makeup appointments – natural looks, it took about 20 minutes. Back in our hotel room, I ironed our outfits after bringing them in my carry-on luggage from Australia. Dressed and ready, we caught the first cab off the rank to the chapel, where we met our excellent photographer and Elvis himself.
Our photographer, Karissa, was a Vegas local, so she took us around to her favourite sunset spots to snap a few more photos. We ended the formalities (or lack thereof) on a downtown rooftop watching the sky go pink before walking hand in hand to get margaritas and hot dogs on the strip. Back at our hotel, we ate our heart-shaped wedding cake, ploughing our forks into pink icing that read “’Til Death” in capitals before a late-night walk on the strip to watch the fire show from the Treasure Island hotel.
Do you have a favourite, stand-out memory from the day?
Dancing on the rooftop as newlyweds while the sun went down and all the lights of Vegas started to flicker to life.
Could you please give us a rough cost breakdown?
My flight from Melbourne to Las Vegas was $1,200. Our outfits, my dress and Tamara’s pantsuit, came to $400. [The] shoes were $350 altogether (heels for Aurelia, loafers for Tamara). Our photography cost $690, the cake was $70, the cab to the chapel was $20 and [the] makeup cost $200. Our pink Cadillac ceremony was $220 and our Venetian hotel accommodation was free (covered by Tamara’s work trip). All in all, it cost us $3,150.
Any advice for others considering an elopement?
DO. IT. #noregrets
Liv Brown, she/her, founder of Rattle Style
Why did you choose an elopement over a wedding?
We chose to elope over a wedding for a few reasons. Since having our baby, Gus, our priorities have completely changed and the thought of planning a big wedding on top of looking after a newborn was way too much. Weddings are beautiful but we also wanted the day to be completely about us, our love and our little family. Sometimes weddings can end up being about everyone else! Also when we thought about the money for a wedding, going away on a holiday instead was way more appealing to us.
When and where did you get eloped?
We eloped in Hawaii in the middle of last year. We chose Hawaii because it’s warm, beautiful and baby friendly! We really just wanted somewhere we could relax, eat and drink (and shop). The date we chose was special to us because it was our son Gus’ due date (he ended up being born 10 days after his due date so don’t worry we didn’t steal his birthday!).
Tell us about the big day!
We spent the day exactly how we wanted to, it was very non-traditional. It started with a Mexican feast with cocktails and champagne to celebrate. We then got married on a very quiet and isolated beach, a taxi drive away from where we were staying. We wrote our own vows and it was just me, my husband and our son who was almost one at the time. We then decided to go back to the hotel for some drinks and pizza – it was very chill but so much fun, so special and stress-free!
We called our best friends to tell them the news but kept it a secret from everyone else until we got back home. We told all of our friends and family at Gus’ first birthday which turned into a big celebration. I wore a really casual dress from one of my favourite brands, Rixo. It had a Hawaiian print on it so I thought it was perfect! It wasn’t a wedding dress at all but I never really wear white so I decided to just wear what I wanted to wear and not feel pressure to dress bridal. My only regret was wearing big platform heels (loved them but why did I think it would be okay to wear heels on the beach?!).
Do you have a favourite, stand-out memory from the day?
I think what I loved most about the day was how perfectly imperfect it was. We were juggling a one-year-old while trying to say our vows and he was interrupting the whole time and not wanting to be put down! Also the weather. It was so windy we could hardly hear anything, we were holding back tears of laughter because it was just so funny that we were in Hawaii but still having weather issues on our day. I think if these things happen when you are having a big wedding it’s so stressful, but when it happens with an elopement it’s just part of it all.
Could you please give us a rough cost breakdown?
So all we really paid for was the celebrant, which was around $300, and a photographer, which was around $800. We also had our wedding rings which we had designed prior. We were staying in a really nice hotel in Hawaii so that all added up but for the wedding and photos, it was probably just over $1,000.
Any advice for others considering an elopement?
Just do it exactly how you want to. Don’t feel like you need to follow any traditional wedding rules because that’s the best thing about the decision to elope. I also think celebrating with friends and family when you get home is really nice, it made it feel more real.
You can have a beautiful intimate time with your partner overseas and then come home and feel the love from friends and family without the pressure of wedding gifts and going over the top!
For more elopement stories, head here.
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