Jake and I decided that we wanted to elope long before we were ever engaged. Everyone envisions and values different things when it comes to a wedding day, we both knew that when our day came we wanted to spend the entire day together focusing only on each other without the distractions and worry that can come along with putting on a big wedding and playing host.
You can read more about our Tulum Elopement Here!
Understanding that we were ultimately being a bit selfish in our decision to elope we decided that it didn’t feel right for our parents, family, and friends to miss out on celebrating this huge milestone in our lives. We decided that hosting a post elopement reception was something that we truly wanted to do so that we could share the happiness of the occasion with our nearest and dearest!
We treated our marriage celebration like a formal micro wedding reception without the exchange of vows. We invited the 50 people that meant the most to us and it was honestly the best decision we could have made when it came to the guest list!
We chose a beautiful loft space in Chicago’s West Loop neighborhood. What I loved about this venue was that it was already so gorgeous that it required minimal decor efforts.
I made sure that the design aesthetic mirrored our Tulum Elopement so that it felt like a continuation of our wedding day for everyone to enjoy. I chose a similar color pallet, had the florist work in lots of pampas into to her design, and even made sure to have the same orange depression glasses that adorned our sweetheart table in Tulum.
The orange menus from Paper Culture read to entice, to satisfy, to indulge before the descriptions of each course. They ended up being one of my favorite small details! Jake and I are such foodies so we put a lot of focus into choosing a Fall menu that was going to be a treat for our family and friends. Many of our guests told us that having the menus really let them get excited about each course! If you aren’t familiar with Paper Culture they are an amazing sustainable paper company that plants a tree for every order placed!
I’m still dreaming about our wedding cake from Vanille Chicago. I was lucky enough to work directly with Sophie, the owner of Vanille Patisserie on the design of my wedding cake. I wanted a tall and slender two tier boho inspired cake and her team completely nailed my vision! Not to mention it was absolutely delicious! We chose two flavors for our guests to be able to choose from, a buttermilk cake with a raspberry jam and rose mousseline, along with a chocolate cake with roasted pecans!
It’s funny because having a marriage celebration was something that we had planned on before the pandemic and now marriage celebrations are the new norm thanks to Covid ruining so many planned weddings. I love it when I hear/read stories about couples that just couldn’t wait to be married and will just party with their loved ones later! If this sounds like you, here are a few tips and things to consider as you plan your marriage celebration or post elopement celebration!
What To Write On Your Save the Dates & Post Elopement Reception Invitations
You have to be very clear that it is NOT a wedding. You are not inviting your loved ones to a wedding, but to your Marriage Celebration. The terms “Marriage Celebration” and “Celebration of their Marriage” are going to be your go to for save the dates and for your post elopement celebration. The save the dates were a great way to share with all of our loved ones early on what our plan was! I encourage you to maybe even share a little bit about what your elopement destination and plans include on the backside of your save the date! You would be surprised how excited everyone will be to learn all about your unique wedding plans.
Tip: This might have changed with how popular marriage celebrations are getting now but when I was shopping for save the dates Minted had the most options for customizing save the dates to say Marriage as opposed to wedding.
When To Host Your Elopement Reception
In most cases a post elopement reception or marriage celebration is held up to a year following your elopement but this can vary depending on the couple and the circumstances. Ours was held only two weeks after we returned from our Tulum Elopement. We were lucky enough to be able to afford to have both so close together and we didn’t want to loose momentum on the excitement of it all. Especially because this was planned so that our families didn’t feel like the moment came and went without them being a part of it.
You Don’t Need To Wear a White Dress BUT YOU CAN!
This is the beauty of writing your own rules and not feeling obligated to traditions. If you want to buy two dresses you have the perfect reason to do so. If you hate the idea of a white dress, your in luck it’s not technically a wedding so no one will expect you to wear one. If you’re like me, and you love your wedding dress so much you will look at your post elopement reception or marriage celebration as the perfect reason to wear your most special dress one more time. My FMIL couldn’t help but laugh at the fact that I wasn’t shopping for a second dress but my mom actually bought me my dress as a wedding gift so giving her the opportunity to see me in it was very important to me. Plus, just like my mom, everyone in the room was also so excited to actually see me in my wedding dress! If you are at all hesitant on if you should re-wear your dress, trust me. You can, and everyone will be so excited to get to see you in it!
Keep The Wedding Traditions That Are Important To You
Since this is not a wedding reception you can do away with so many of the silly traditions like bridal party walk out introductions, cake cutting photo moments, and the bouquet toss. However, there might be a few elements from a traditional wedding reception that you and your guests might enjoy keeping. For our reception we choose to do a first “public” dance as husband and wife along with toasts and speeches by our honorary “Best Man” & Maid Of Honor”. We didn’t have a bridal party but we did each ask one person each who had been present for the entirety of our relationship to share some kind words at our reception.
Incorporate Elements of Your Elopement Into Your Elopement Reception
If you can, I think its really nice to share moments of your elopement with your friends and family. You can choose to display photos from your wedding day on the table with your place cards, or if you had a videographer capture the day you might even consider playing the video once everyone is seated for dinner. For our reception we adorned the tables with the same boho vintage depression glasses that were part of our wedding dinner tablescape in Tulum. We also made sure to buy enough postcards from Tulum while we were in Mexico so that we could send our family and friends a unique thank you card tied back to our elopement destination. Although we didn’t go this route, another idea would be to have the menu be inspired by your wedding location.
