The wedding planner eloped

I posted about Melody and Wil before, however I asked Melody to actually write about her wedding...she does a much better job than me:).

Again...and I said this before, what an amazing couple! Melody to me looks like she was part of Moulin Rouge!

Ok...so here we go....

I have been a wedding planner since 2000. So, when I got engaged to Wil, the most wonderful man on the planet (personal bias acknowledged), I had a very difficult time identifying myself as a “bride”. I’ve always thought of wedding cakes and guest favors in terms of others. Attempting to apply those ideas to myself usually ended in either fits of laughter or anguish.

I asked Wil what he wanted. He wanted what I wanted (see “most wonderful man” reference above). Whenever we did fathom the thought of our wedding day we saw the two of us standing in an atmosphere that fostered our ability to open up to each other in the purest form. Our vision naturally transformed into a private wedding. When I say private, I mean the type of wedding that friends and family don’t know about until afterwards. The day that we decided on our “planned elopement”, I took out the standard wedding to-do list, and I happily crossed off every item that I did not need to worry about! I was left with about ten items and a great big smile.

The biggest challenge for me was succeeding at making every aspect of our wedding feel different from anything I had ever seen. I also wanted an elopement without sacrificing on fun. The relative low cost of an elopement actually upped our “fun stuff” budget. It started with the dress. I didn’t want a “wedding dress”, per se. I wanted a killer dress that made a somewhat unusual statement and just happened to be white. I also wanted blue shoes that matched my engagement ring: a blue sapphire. I found a vintage bag that was the same blue! The most important accessory was my bouquet. Before my grandmother died, I would read to her from her bible. So, I took the bible to a florist I had worked with, and he turned her bible into my bouquet! I actually read from that same bible during our ceremony.

Four years earlier, Wil had attended a wedding and liked the ceremony so much that he kept the officiant’s information. To think that a man, who doesn't really like going to weddings in the first place, did such a thing made me think, "wow, this lady must be something special!" Unfortunately, I had a more difficult time finding a wedding location built for two. I happened upon our ceremony location quite on accident. I was taking a walk in my neighborhood one day, and walked into the new children’s art center. It was such a magically place! I begged, and it became our wedding location.

Weddings of all sizes are wonderful. Small weddings have one unbeatable aspect, though. Usually, on the morning of a wedding I am up early, and I don’t sit down again until 2:00 in the morning. The morning of our wedding was so peaceful, and the rest of the day followed suit. The next day we got to relive it over and over again when we, finally, told all of our friends and family. Elopement can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. Our decision to elope did not rise out of defiance or ill will. It rose from our wanting to select the truest and best form to communicate our love for one another. I wouldn’t have changed anything.