Unique Ideas to Incorporate Your Family in your Elopement!
Fun fact, even though you may be eloping or having a small wedding, you can still incorporate your family in your elopement as much as you wish! Use these ideas to involve fa your friends too 🙂 Keep reading for ideas on how to elope with family!
Ideas to incorporate your family on the elopement day
Letters from loved ones
Have your loved ones send you handwritten letters, personal recipe cards, pictures, whatever! You can open these whenever you want on your day!
Ideas on when to incorporate letters from your loved ones:
- During a ceremony select a few before your vows
- During dinner or snack break
- Around a campfire as you are winding down from your adventure
- As you are getting ready in the morning to kick off your day
- All of the above!!
Zoom them in
This will take cell service/an internet connection but you can always have your family use Google Meet or Zoom if you want to include them and they can’t make it or you want to involve more people remotely. This allows you to have your very personal, intimate day while still sharing it with others!
Ideas on when and how to incorporate your family in your elopement:
- During the ceremony
- Video call just to say hi later
Video messages
Just like the letters from above, have a friend collect video messages from your loved ones. They can edit it all together and you’ll have a mini video of love to watch on your day! (I recommend iMovie for Apple users!)
Ideas on when to incorporate your family in your elopement:
- During dinner or snack break
- Around a campfire as you are winding down from your adventure
- As you are getting ready in the morning to kick off your day
- All of the above if you have a lot to get through!!
Pictures/Items from your loved ones
Do you have a loved one that has passed on, and you wish you could still involve? Grab some pictures of them and keep them close throughout the day!
Ideas on when to incorporate your family in your elopement:
- Trinket on your bouquet (if you have flowers)
- Pin under a suit jacket with a picture!
- “Something borrowed” – maybe your friend or family has an item or piece of clothing you’d love to use on your day, even if they won’t be there! You could wear your parents outfit, or an accessory from their outfit!
A moment to thank everyone who isn’t there!
Just because you didn’t invite someone, doesn’t mean they don’t mean something to you and there are so many reasons why people don’t attend weddings.
Ideas on when to incorporate your family in your elopement:
- A moment during the ceremony to thank them (whether they are there or not). For example, maybe you take a moment before your vows to say why you’re grateful for the family in your life and how they’ve helped you leading up to this moment. “I’m super grateful for your mom, because she made me my dress.” or “Your sister is the best. She helped us soften the announcement we are eloping and also helped me decide and plan for us!” It doesn’t have to be something they see later on, but you know you’ll have done it!
- A moment during the day to record little video messages to your loved ones, to thank them for all the help leading up to your day! Click send, and it’s one way for them to also feel apart of your day even if you’re hoping for a day alone.
Invite them!
An elopement or small wedding can still have guests and they can attend as little or as much of the day as you want!
Ideas on when to incorporate them:
- Get ready with them!
- Ceremony in a backyard, a lunch, and then a send-off with them to go on your wedding day hike.
- Ceremony
- Picnic post private vow ceremony
- The whole day!
Ideas to involve your family after your elopement day
Host a party later on
You might be the type of person who still loves a good party, but wants something smaller for your actual vows so you can enjoy your day to the fullest. You can avoid the stress of big weddings on your actual day so you can relax and enjoy it! Theeeen, you can go nuts with an after-party at a later date!
Best of both worlds, in my opinion!
“Holiday card”- but about your elopement/small wedding!
You know those holiday cards people send where they recap their year? You could do that for after your elopement! Kinda a “we eloped” announcement! If you’re adventuring, this is a cool way to share some of the epic photos from your photographer (I always send my couples sneak peaks shortly after their day) and share more about what you did! If it’s anything like I envision, it’s going to be freaking epic!!
Get creative – there are probably more ways that I haven’t thought of and I can’t wait to see what you come up with if this is important to you!!
omg what a great resource for couples planning their elopement! this is such an informative article! Very helpful!
This is such an amazing resource! All of these ideas are so unique and so special! Even if your family isn’t physically present at your elopement, you can still include them in your day! Love this!
This is such a great list and resource on including your family and friends in unique ways during your elopement! Great in-depth info and very helpful.
Some really heartfelt suggestions here for couples wanting to keep their family with them. I particularly like the video messages idea. Thanks for sharing!
These are all great ideas. It’s is helpful for anyone feeling like they don’t know how to include family when they elope. Great job!
Lot’s a great ideas! It’s a myth that elopements have to be secret and can’t include family & friends – you totally busted that myth!
Excellent ideas to include family on your wedding day! Love all of your suggestions!!
Great ideas to include people but still have the elopement you WANT.
[…] Curious how you would narrow down your guest list for a day like this? Check out my resource on how to narrow your guest list! And if you want to involve your family during your day, check out my resource on all the ways to involve your family and friends! […]
I’ve seen couples record their weddings with their phone and a nice tripod but Zooming in family members is a great idea in places with cell service!