YOU’RE ENGAGED!  You’re excited!  And I’m sure you’ve heard a lot of these questions since you announced your engagement: “Have you chosen a date?  What are your wedding plans? Have you sent out save the dates?” One question you may be asking yourself though is how to tell your family that you plan on eloping.

If your family is like many families, they probably already have a lot of expectations for your wedding day.  A big church ceremony, a larger reception, but while thinking about it, that really just isn’t in your vision.  So what do you do?  How do you let your loved ones know that your wedding day isn’t going to be the big traditional day that they are envisioning?

It takes a lot to announce to your family that you’re eloping, but don’t worry, I’ve got you.  Here are 6 ways to help ease the shock of announcing your elopement.

1. Have a plan

Take some time to sit down with your soon-to-be spouse and go over the family members you want to tell and how you want to tell them that you’re eloping.  More than likely, you know how most of your family members are going to react, so it is helpful to have a plan for how you’re going to tell each of them, as well as an order in which you plan to tell your family members.  

Tell the family members whom you are closest to first, and if you can, try to do it in person or over video chat.  Go into the conversation with a lot of excitement and with some details of your day so that your family members can see that this is about you and that they don’t have to take offense to the fact that they won’t be present.

2. Tell them in person

For a lot of family members, this is super important.  If you can, try to plan your announcement to your families when you are with them in person.  Obviously, this might not be possible for all families, if you’re not able to tell them in person plan a facetime or skype date to let them know what your plans are and how excited you are about them.

3. Start dropping hints early

If eloping is something you have talked openly about with your boyfriend or girlfriend before you even get engaged, you can start preparing family members ahead of time.  When asked about your engagement you can mention how you’ve talked about marriage and eloping.  Mention how excited you are to one day marry your person and how you cannot wait to have an intimate ceremony with just the two of you.

That way, when the time comes to tell your family that you’re eloping or getting engaged, your family members already have an idea of what your expectations are for your day.

4. Fill them in on the details

When it comes time to announce your elopement, sometimes it helps to fill them in on the details of your vision.  Talk to them about how excited you are to marry the love of your life.  Tell them about the vision you two have and how you plan to spend your day together.

If you’re going on a trip to elope share with them all the plans you’ve made, where you’re going to go, and how you’re so excited to share all of the photos from the experience when you return.

5. Ask them for help/ Involve them in your wedding day

Just because you might not have your family members physically there on your wedding day, that doesn’t mean you can’t have them there in spirit!

Ask family members to write you and you’re soon to be spouse letters and well wishes for you to read on your wedding day, or suggest that they make a video for the two of you to watch the morning of.

The pressure of telling your family that you plan on eloping can definitely be overwhelming. If you’re able to take some of these steps and use them to help you with your announcement you should start to feel some of that pressure go away. Remember that this is your day and you should be able to enjoy it the way you want to!

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Looking for ways to announce to friends and family? The knot has a list of 21 Elopement Announcement Cards to share the news with friends and family! Check out the article here.