Our Big Sur Elopement

          If you’ve been keeping up with my blog or other social media accounts (Instagram), then you probably know that I just got married.  My husband and I had been engaged since October, 2017, so we had a pretty long engagement.  We wanted to take our time in planning and saving to pay for the wedding.  I think A year and a half engagement period was perfect for us.  We also didn’t want it to be as long as two years.  Also, after trying on some dresses I knew I wanted to make my own.  I had to have enough time to do that.  I will be doing a post more about my dress later on.
          Pretty soon after getting engaged we knew what we wanted.  We knew that we wanted to have a ceremony with just us and then have a reception with friends and family.  Since we don’t live close to anybody we know, we thought it would be crazy to have the reception in California.  We just feel like the ceremony itself should be enjoyed between the couple only.  I was never really one for wedding traditions.  I think most of them are cheesy and pointless.  After playing around with the idea of eloping in Greece and Hawaii, we decided just to get married in California.  We scouted out a lot of spots in the state and settled on Big Sur.  It is my favorite place in California, so we thought it was special enough.  It’s where we went on vacation about 3 years before moving here.  Greece had too many legal complications and we decided to just honeymoon in Hawaii.  Our reception is in June.  I’m super excited for that and I have been planning like crazy.
          In order to elope in Big Sur, it can be a little complicated.  Many places and parks don’t allow weddings.  A lot of other spots require a permit.  A permit isn’t too difficult to get.  You just have to call around to see what to do.  We stayed in Carmel that whole weekend and it was magical.  I am in love with Carmel by the Sea.  It’s the cutest little town.  We actually visited Carmel last June, to look for spots to elope and that’s when we decided we wanted to get a hotel there when we get married.  If you are interested in doing the same, you can find our officiant HERE.  She was super helpful with the planning process as well.  She took the majority of these photos at no additional cost.  Some of them we took ourselves, using the same process that we used for engagement pictures. 
          After looking back at the weekend I feel like it was perfect.  I don’t have any regrets about keeping the ceremony private because we are still going to have a reception.  I could never just go to a court house and get married because I don’t want it to feel like just another errand.  It has to be special in my opinion.  Also, neither one of us really like a lot of attention.  That’s why we wanted it to be with just us.  I know a lot of people wonder if they should elope or not and I think it just depends on how you do it.  I think if we did it in a simple way, I would definitely regret it.  We didn’t do it to keep the ceremony more simple or to relieve stress.  We did it because we wanted to have an extra special ceremony.