Top Mountain Weddings of 2010: Elopements

Elopements

Did you all know that the Hindsight Groom and I almost eloped? We were fighting over guest lists, details, travel for key family members, and general wedding madness. The Hindsight Groom was fed up and disgusted with scale and scope of the project. He was disgusted that the wedding had become a project at all. You see, apparently the guy does all of his planning and agonizing before he pops the question. Once he's down on one knee asking you to marry him he's ready, like right then. D's impatience to be married (as opposed to getting married,) coupled with the logistics of getting all family members in one place at led us to seriously consider elopement. We spent a few days researching, contemplating, and laying down preliminary plans. Our elopement pick: Big Sky Montana, where D wintered with his family as a child. I even created an "elope" tag in my Delicious account. So elopements hold a very special place in my heart. Here are my top two picks for mountain elopements for 2010. Enjoy!

California Mountain Elopement

I'm not sure if this is an elopement or an extremely small wedding, but one thing is true, it's adorable. Don't you just love that dress? It was custom made by the bride using a vintage dress as a pattern and doillies she hand crochet herself. She had to actually be sewn into the dress prior to the ceremony–all fashion runway style.

Bride and groom elope in California forest

bride in green dress with doily lace overlay and red shoes

bride and groom with child and small cake
California Mountain Elopement Gia Canali images from via 100 Layer Cake

Wedding for Two

One thing that strikes my about modern elopements is all the details are still there: the cake, the dress, the bouquet, the banquet. This romantic elopement at the charming  Figueroa Mountain Farmhouse in Los Olivos, CA had only two guests–the bride and the groom. None-the-less, this couple made their day as sacred and filled with ceremony and tradition as any blowout wedding. The bride walked down the aisle in a Amsale Blue Label gown called Calista. Every detail was attended to from the floral arrangements at the ceremony site, to the velvet menu backing to the adorable blue French macaroons and miniature painted wedding cake. When you only have two guests, you can afford the height of luxury!

bride and groom elope under a green canopy

real elopement board

painted cake
Wedding for Two Images from Aaron Delesie via Style Me Pretty

This concludes our special New Years Weekend Mountain weddings in review. I hope you enjoyed the show. And now back to our regularly scheduled blog posts… :)