It's Only Forever, Not Long at All.

Our Elopement 🤍 Planning my dream elopement in 2 months & all the details, and post wedding blues...

Sep 18, 2025

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1 I added a little gallery of some more photos at the end.

The secret is out, we eloped! Actually — almost a month ago now, but I just posted about it on social media last week so I waited to write this post.

I knew since before even getting engaged that I wanted a private elopement, and that I didn’t want to tell anyone until after. Now of course our families kind of figured it out — we had been engaged over a year and hadn’t talked about planning a wedding or anything at all, and we did tell them initially the plan was to elope! I couldn’t leave them completely in the dark, but the date, location and details were completely a secret. I love the idea of just getting married without anyone knowing, but realistically when your family knows you are engaged, there are bound to be questions about plans and dates because they’re excited too!

A private elopement was the perfect option for us for so many reasons. I like attending weddings — they’re fun and I love to dress up and dance, but I don’t like a lot of elements of a traditional wedding. I hate having all eyes on me, I wouldn’t have wanted a crowd to watch us actually get married in a ceremony, we would have done private vows, and I hate speeches, wedding games, etc.

A private elopement felt so much more meaningful to us, because at the end of the day the marriage is about US, not anyone else. I personally feel like that day doesn’t need to be shared. While it would have been nice for our families and friends to get to see and celebrate us, I’m so glad we did a completely private elopement instead. I’d do it over 1000 times exactly the same way if I could. It feels so much more special to us that no one else was there, the experience was sacred and intimate and just for us two. If you’re considering a private elopement, I say do it do it do it.

As someone super type-A, it may be surprising that I planned and picked out everything just 2 months before we actually eloped. I hadn’t given a ton of thought to when I wanted to elope, but I decided at the beginning of the summer that I didn’t want to wait a whole ‘nother year to get married. I also knew I wanted to be married in a lush green landscape with willow trees — and if I wanted it to still be green that meant it had to be before fall! As soon as I decided I went into super-planning mode writing out every single thing I needed/ wanted and all my dreams for the day.

Our elopement was so special. It was exactly what I pictured. When planning, there were a few key things I knew I wanted right from the start:

JUST US
Married under a willow tree
First dance to our song

Now of course there were other details I wanted as we went along, or things I picked out — like my dress and ring of course. But those 3 things were my absolute must haves.

JUST US: We eloped with the absolute bare minimum amount of people that could be there: just us, a justice of the peace, a photographer (who was also one of our witnesses), and another witness the JP brought for us (you need two). The ceremony itself was super short because we did private vows afterwards.

Married under a willow tree: I also knew the whole time that I wanted to be married under a willow tree. We love nature and the outdoors so much — R and I always say how special it is that we both get so excited about nature even in places we’ve seen hundreds of times. We always have such a sense of wonder for outdoors, so an outside ceremony with a big tree was a must. Willows are my favourite, I think they’re so romantic and ethereal so that was a no brainer. We took a day and drove around to a few different spots about 2 months before the elopement, and thats how we chose a location.

First dance: I also knew I wanted a first dance to the song As the World Falls Down by David Bowie from the movie Labyrinth(1986) because it’s such a personal song to us. David Bowie is my absolute favourite artist ever ever ever. And the movie Labyrinth is one of our all time favourites — we love 80s fantasy. So the song was perfect for us and I knew right away that was the song we were going to dance to.

1×

0:00

-3:41

It’s such a dreamy, ethereal, and beautiful song. I tear up now every time I hear it because it transports me right back to that day, the sun dancing through the willow trees while we danced barefoot on the grass.

More Planning:

Okay, so let’s talk logistics and planning of an elopement in 2 months. Of course it was much easier to plan last minute when we didn’t have guests to consider — if you are eloping but plan to have a few guests I would definitely at least nail down a date a bit earlier if you really want everyone to be able to come.

My Steps:

The first thing I did with actually planning and booking — PICK A PHOTOGRAPHER. I’m a huge photos girl. I knew having someone to capture my vision and all the memories was the most important thing to me (besides actually getting married of course). For me, the photographer was the most important thing I had to book, and also probably the most expensive part because otherwise the elopement was SO inexpensive compared to a large wedding.

To find a photographer I went on instagram and looked up photographers in my area, scrolling through their work to find someone who’s style fit what I want. I was actually having a bit of trouble finding someone whose style matched what I like because I really wanted the photos to look dreamy and magical, and most people’s style seems to be very clean and polished. Then I found the perfect photographer for what I wanted. If you’re local, I cannot recommend Photos by Devyn enough! I can’t even put into words how perfectly she captured the magic of our day.

So step one: Find a photographer and pick a date she is available ✅

This is when I nailed down the date so we could book Devyn. Picking a date for us was really just finding a day that worked for us — we actually got married on a week day in hopes less people would be in the park we married at. The plan worked perfectly because no one else was there. It felt like we booked the park out!

Next step: find a justice of the peace. In Nova Scotia there is a directory of justices of the peace and the price is set by the province so they all cost the same. I emailed a few, and ended up finding one and booking! Again, for anyone local: we went with Sarah Anderson and she was perfect! Super sweet, great to work with and she was able to bring a witness for us as you need two. The friend she brought along was also so sweet, everyone was great and made the day even more special and fun.

Step two: Find and book a justice of the peace ✅

Now that we had our date locked down, I booked a place to stay because we thought that would be more special, and I started emailing about cakes because I decided I wanted a cute cake for our wedding day. We stayed at a historic inn we’d visited before; a place that already holds special meaning for us. It was a bit far from where we decided to elope, but the longer drive felt worth it — I wanted to stay somewhere meaningful that we could return to for our anniversaries, rather than choosing a closer place that held no personal significance.

Then I found the cake. A lot of the local cake makers seemed to all be on vacation but I found a local bakery that executed my vision perfectly! I wanted a vintage heart style cake — just white with black script writing, and they did an amazing job.

The other main thing I ordered earlier on (as in a little over a month out) — My dress. I kind of took a risk with this because I bought one that is handmade and made to order from a brand on Etsy. I couldn’t try it on before, and didn’t have time to alter if it wasn’t right. And to add a little extra stress, the company is from Ukraine so I had to pay a rush fee to make sure I got it on time! They were so kind and accommodating, made it to my measurements, and it was better than I could have ever dreamed of.

Our cake, rings & vows books.

My veil was $20 on amazon. I didn’t want to wear a veil the whole time, so spending hundreds just didn’t make sense. I ended up getting this one a week before our wedding because I knew it would make for some good pictures, and you wouldn’t be able to tell a huge quality difference on camera.

I wanted to hand write our vows into little books that I can keep forever. We got these little mini notebooks at chapters. I was originally going to order some custom ones from Etsy, but I couldn’t find any I loved. One day while browsing books we saw these little notebooks and fell in love! Very simple and classic looking.

The Cake - a white vintage heart cake. For locals, we got ours from Michelle Ashley Bakery in downtown Halifax. It was perfect — exactly what I wanted. I love the black script writing and the bows add a little bit of visual interest which I love.

I also knew from the beginning I wanted to have a wedding perfume. A lot of people get a perfume specifically for their wedding day because scents hold very powerful memories that bring us right back to the time and place where we smelled them.

“Smell is strongly linked to memory, so a special scent worn only on the wedding day will become a powerful trigger for recalling precious moments and emotions from the celebration.”

I picked Wild Bluebell from Jo Malone because both R and I loved the scent so much. I have a few Jo Malone perfumes I adore, like wood sage and sea salt, but I wanted to pick one that I’ve never worn for anything else. Wild Bluebell fit the vibes so perfectly. It smells fresh, green, natural and lightly floral, and it already reminds me of the lush greenery and sweetness that filled our perfect day.

Wild Bluebell is described online as “Vibrant sapphire blooms in a shaded woodland. The delicate sweetness of dewy bluebells suffused with lily of the valley and eglantine, with a luscious twist of persimmon.”

To me, it really does encapsulate the smell of sparkling dew in a sun drenched forest, and now it smells like my wedding day.

R isn’t a big fragrance guy, but we ended up getting him Dolce&Gabbana Light Blue. It’s also fresh and light, and we felt it complimented mine well. The scents mingle together beautifully. Light Blue is a bit more citrusy and bright, but still a little musky and masculine. It perfectly fit the vibes of our bright sunny day. I can’t even lie — I didn’t want to wash R’s wedding shirt for weeks because I could still smell our perfumes on it and I couldn’t bring myself to rinse that smell away.

It was truly the most perfect, dreamiest day ever. We lucked out with the best weather — sunny, and not too hot, and the perfect timing with no one else being at the park so it felt like we had it all to ourselves. I miss it so much already, I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve teared up telling my husband(!!!) that I miss getting married and wish we could go back to that day. Post wedding blues are so real even if you don’t do a big wedding. I miss wearing my dress, saying our vows, and dancing under the willow trees with the most gorgeous glowing light.

The next day, before we drove home we wanted to make the most of our little wedding trip, so we decided to stop by a beautiful historic garden to wander around all the beautiful scenery and soak up our first day as husband and wife. We stopped at the little cafe in the garden for a coffee and a lemonade and sat under the most amazing giant elm tree I’ve ever seen.