Personal Experiences of Eloping
Many people see elopement like the traditional scenario of the cartoon; the prospective groom with a ladder under the prospective bride's bedroom window with the moon shining brightly above. We did not do the running away, but we did marry without telling our families and friends. We had lived together for decades and both been previously married and divorced. Our families and friends live in a different country to us, so it was reasonably easy to keep the secret.
Our lives together had begun long before our wedding day. We felt that to make a huge thing out of one day was to make that day more important than all the other days and years that we had pulled at the same yoke. The commitment we made to one another was made long before our wedding day and was shown in our actions in daily life. We felt that to have an enormous family wedding would be tantamount, to wiping out all those years of love that went before. That day was not overwhelmingly important to us and we did not want it to be important to others. We also did not want the three-ringed circus that is a traditional wedding in our culture.
We booked a civil ceremony. We bought a plain gold wedding band, the cheapest in the Jewellers. I told my mother six weeks before the day and swore her to secrecy. If you tell my mother a secret she is like a clam. She was the only family member that knew.
I wore a dressy suit, that I already had and had never had occasion to wear, decorated with a silk flower on the lapel of the jacket and my husband wore his best trousers and jacket. We invited a handful of friends that we have made here. The village mayor looked resplendent in his official sash. The staff of the mayor's office had decked the office with beautiful flowers. The ceremony was short and sweet and not in our mother tongue. We signed the register and then repaired to a local cheap restaurant for lunch. We had only booked the table the night before the wedding but the patron and his wife had pulled out all the stops. Our table was dressed beautifully with flowers and leaves in the traditional manner of this area of France. When the owner came, to take our order, he gave every lady a red rose. They had even decorated a chocolate gateau with wedding favours. A great time was had by all.
It was a pleasant, simple day, much more appropriate in our circumstances and one that we enjoyed tremendously. Some family members do not understand why we got married in secret and have not forgiven us for not telling them. They feel very hurt that we did not want them there. They do not seem to realise that we had the quiet and simple wedding that we wanted and that, when all is said and done, it was our day.
