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Not every little girl grows up clutching a binder packed with doilies and details of her destination wedding. Even if she does, often the numerous, inherent stressors of planning such a shindig bubble up and make her back away from the Pinterest boards. Millennials sure have a knack for ruining institutions previous generations adored—and it seems that includes traditional weddings.
It’s not that millennials reject the concept of marriage as a whole, but many are opting for an alternative by choosing small, sometimes surprise ceremonies over expansive, expensive weddings. Elopements, sans Vegas, are on the rise, inspiring all-inclusive elopement and pop-up wedding businesses to similarly swell in popularity.
Eloping Is Fun, a New York City–based full elopement service, has been in business for about four years; according to founder and wedding photographer Jenny MacFarlane, “Business has kind of doubled every year.” She continues, “We might be hitting a plateau. My company does maybe 60, 70 [weddings] a year, so it's significant.” And it’s mostly millennials hitting her up. “From what I know about millennials, things are tough financially,” she says. “That's one of the big reasons, in general. People just want to start their life. They don't feel like they have to follow any sort of traditional norms anymore.”
Cutting costs is one obvious appeal. The Knot's 2016 study shows the average wedding costs about $35,500, while the average worker under 35 makes less than $40,000 a year. Price point was the big motivator for 31-year-old Keri, who decided that elopement was right for her and her fiancé. After picking a date and a venue, and whittling the guest list to 150, costs still hovered around $16,000.
“It just kind of made me sick to think like, ‘My God, we're going to be spending this much money on this wedding for, like, eight hours’ worth of fun,’” Keri says.
A Colorado trip inspired a change of plans. The couple decided to invite 10 of their closest friends and rent a cabin for a group vacation this fall. “Oh, and also we’re going to get married in the middle of it,” Keri says. In Rocky Mountain National Park’s Estes Park, specifically. Even with flights, cabin rental, buying a white dress, and the cost of hiring a wedding photographer, the total for their new plan is about $2,500—nearly a sixth of their original ceremony estimate.
That average wedding cost can keep inflating too. Millennials are getting hitched later in life than previous generations, and the number of people in one person’s regular orbit at age 19 is going to be dramatically smaller than it will be by age 29. Take into account that, plus the ever-expanding universe of social media, and most millennials’ social networks may be considered downright sprawling. (And should we even get into the whole business of plus-ones? I’m already tired.)
“The invitation list is one of the most dreaded and anxiety-producing aspects of wedding planning,” says Samantha Burns, a licensed couples therapist and dating coach. “Now you have to consider friends from different walks of life, such as your high school and college friends, those you met while studying abroad, at your first job, your current coworker besties, the running club you go to on the weekends, and the fantastic couple you met on vacation. [Yet] there’s only so much money and so many table seating arrangements that you can afford. The potential for party faux pas and social pressure to edit and cut down your list could result in the end of a friendship, or family drama.” Elopements, just by definition, shave down any guest list considerably.
In past generations, heading to the courthouse to get your “I Do” on was often synonymous with an unexpected pregnancy. Though surely that still inspires some elopements, the country’s uncertain health insurance landscape has become an even more pressing concern, motivating many to tie the knot just to make sure they’re covered in an emergency—and quickly. Leaving a job and the health insurance it provided helped push Amy, 28, and her now husband, Chris, to head to the courthouse for a speedy wedding. The two told only immediate family about their plan and only the day before it happened—but that was less a desire to be sneaky and more because that’s how it got scheduled. “We called the courthouse the day before, and then after Chris got off work that evening, we went to the mall and I went to Anthropologie and found [a white dress],” Amy says. “I was just going to wear something I had in my closet, but I called my mom and she encouraged me to make the day special.” Amy’s mother couldn’t make the wedding on such short notice, but Chris’s parents attended, even taking the newlyweds to lunch—including champagne and cake—afterward.
Though obviously this couple’s wedding was expedited for bureaucratic reasons, Amy says they probably would have eloped anyway. “I’ve never loved being the center of attention,” she says. “Some girls dream about [their wedding day] forever, right? I’ve never really been one of them. [The] more I think about it, the less I think a traditional wedding would have suited me. It's just not really my thing.”
Amy says when she posted an official announcement about her marriage on Facebook, she was sure to stress the fact she was not pregnant.
By one’s late twenties, a person is already quite the wedding-guest veteran. I’m 29 and by December I will have attended seven weddings this year alone. Over time and with repeated exposure, it’s easy to feel exhausted with weddings in general. Kelley, a 33-year-old wedding photographer in Atlanta, obviously knows the lavish nuptials drill better than most—and sees its potentially ugly side. “I shoot a wedding every week and see a lot of the stuff that goes into that,” she says. “[I often hear] people say, ‘If I could've done it different, I would've.’"
When she and her girlfriend got engaged last August, Kelley started by planning an ornate wedding, only to reroute to a much smaller courthouse solution in March. They sent an email invite to immediate family only. “Then we just went and ate burgers after, and it was the best day ever,” Kelley says. “It was the most stressfree day.” Surely the energy saved from not making polite small talk with peripheral guests helped Kelley and her wife truly experience the experience as well.
“An emotional benefit of having a small ceremony is that it’s easier to be mentally present and soak it all in, since often times at highly attended weddings, the bride and groom are rushing around to greet all of the guests,” Burns points out. “It’s important for eloping couples not to diminish the event because it’s small and to share and process it with family and friends. I also urge eloping couples to still have a photographer or videographer to capture the memorable moments, so that you can share it with others and also watch and relive the special day over years to come.”
That detail is part of what keeps MacFarlane’s business going. Plenty of couples use the money saved on skipping a big ceremony to make it a destination elopement. Iceland is especially popular—MacFarlane says she has four Iceland elopements booked for the month of August alone. “Obviously a lot of people are doing this for the photos. They're not stupid,” she says. Though her sentiments can far extend exotic locations. A well-framed Instagram announcement can be, well, validating. Kelley even set up a tripod, post-wedding, to capture the moment and post to the ‘Gram. “[Couples] know photos are currency this day and age,” she says. “I mean, that's a dope-ass photo. That's going to represent you for a really long time.”
Keri, the bride who will elope to Colorado, says she reserved a significant portion of her budget for just such a dope-ass photographer. “I wanted somebody there to document those things,” she says, noting that she selected Sarah Gormley, a photographer who specializes in a more documentary approach to capture weddings. “Obviously the millennial narcissist in me is like, ‘I can't wait to post these pictures and it's going to be really cool.’ I would be lying if I didn't say I know that people think this is kind of cool.”
But such evidence supports one universal truth with weddings: This day is about you and your partner and your love for each other. It isn’t about tailoring a menu to accommodate your estranged cousin’s girlfriend’s oxalate-free dietary restrictions, or forbidding a DJ from playing Bruno Mars.
“I want to show people that it's not cheap, it's not cheesy, and you don't have to be married by Elvis,” Keri says. “You can do something that's fun, beautiful, within budget, with your closest friends or your family, and there's nothing to be afraid of—it's fine. In order to get married, you don't have to have a big wedding. It doesn't have to be some big to-do. You don't need a hashtag.”
Lead image: Getty Images
