How to Plan an Experience-Driven Elopement
If there’s one thing I’m passionate about in the wedding world, it’s helping my couples make incredible memories of their wedding. One of the BEST ways I’ve found that my couples do that is by choosing an experience-driven elopement. It’s a type of elopement that puts the focus on experiences rather than events and keeps the heart of why you’re getting married at the center. First, I’ll lay out all the steps you need to take to execute this type of elopement. Stay tuned to the end for ideas on what this can look like!
What is an experience-driven elopement?
First things first, though. What even is an experience-driven elopement?! It’s simple. Instead of a quick, half-hour traditional ceremony, you’re basing the start of your lives together around experiences together. Those experiences can be your favorite things to do, something you’ve never tried before but always wanted to try, or things you want to do with guests alongside you. The idea is to focus on quality time together rather than the stress of an event. It's a way to create extra memories surrounding your wedding day!
These extra activities can be the day of, or you can stretch them out over the course of your wedding week and make it a multi-day elopement! If you’re planning a destination elopement already, you might as well make an entire trip of things – both for you and your guests!
Why plan an experience-driven elopement?
Because it’s FUN! If that isn’t reason enough, here are a few more:
Quality time with your person
Creating memories with your partner and guests
Spreads the celebration out over several days instead of just one
Decreases nerves on your wedding day because you’re focused on enjoying yourself and the activities
You’re not the center of attention all day (which most of my couples prefer!)
Intentional time to slow down and relax
Epically unique wedding photos
Should you hire a planner for your experience-driven elopement?
For a lot of small elopements, couples will opt out of hiring a wedding planner. However, if you’re wanting to plan an experience-driven elopement, I recommend hiring a wedding planner that is local to the area. They know about all the best things to do in that area and can coordinate with activities vendors on your behalf, taking a huge amount of work off of your plate! If you are having guests participate in activities with you during your wedding week, then having a planner becomes even more essential. You’ll be glad you left the coordinating to someone else! You could also consider hiring a travel advisor to do the lodging portion of your elopement and plan a custom itinerary for you and your guests if you aren’t looking for design help on your wedding day.
Choosing a photographer for your experience-driven elopement
While you can absolutely just plan these events as part of your wedding travels, why not bring your photographer along? You’re going to want photos of everything you did during your wedding week to re-live it over and over through the years anyway. Your wedding is so much more than just your vows. Plus you’ll want to enjoy all of these activities and not worry about grabbing selfies and missing the fun.
Here’s the thing about choosing your photographer for this though. You are essentially choosing someone to adventure with you and your spouse on your intimate wedding day. You want someone who you can have fun with, who gets you and helps you remember what the day is all about. I love having the honor of being that for my couples! I genuinely want you to choose your photographer off of who you feel most comfortable with. If that’s me, I’ll be thrilled to do all of these things alongside you and capture your memories!
How to plan an experience-driven elopement
The key to having a successful experience-driven elopement is planning ahead. You are adding extra activities and events the week of your wedding, so it does add some extra planning effort. Before you stress, it’s completely worth it! But to make it more enjoyable for you the week of, you’ll want to do your due diligence with creating a road map ahead of time. If it’s just the two of you, you may be able to get away with being a little more spontaneous. But if you’re having guests then you need to have a plan for what activities, who is doing them, and when.
Choose a location that means something to you
The first thing you need to do when you start planning your elopement is choose a location. You may choose this based on the best location for the time of year you want to get married. You may choose a place that you and your partner love visiting together. If you need some inspiration, check out my elopement guides! No matter where you choose, that place will have activities that are unique to that locale. You need to know where you’re eloping before you can choose activities for your experience-driven elopement!
Identify activities
Now, based off of your location, you’ll pick your activities. What do you and your future spouse enjoy doing together? What’s unique to your wedding destination? What things would your guests (if any) love doing alongside you? If you’re having guests, you may want to plan a mixture of things to do with guests and an activity to do just the two of you together. You can also consider planning two different options for more and less adventurous guests and give them the option to choose which they’d like to participate in. In my elopement guides, I always provide suggestions on activities for that location! You can also check things like travel blogs, Instagram and official park sites for inspiration. Or, scroll to the end of this blog for ideas!
Contact vendors and create a schedule of events
When you have a general idea of what you want to do, you’ll want to find local vendors and guides who can execute this for you. If you’re doing something like a simple picnic at sunset, you won’t need a tour company to do this, but you may want to find a grocery store on Google Maps that you can get supplies from or plan to pack a soft cooler in your suitcase. If you’re doing something more advanced like a tour or a rental, reach out to vendors for pricing. You also want to ask whether they have any minimum guest count or private tour options available. Lay out how much each activity will cost and decide whether you will cover the cost for guests, or if you will let guests opt in on their own dime.
You also want to lay out the itinerary into a wedding week schedule so you know what events are happening what days, and what day you need to ask any guests to arrive to town.
Use an online RSVP that lists each event
This step is just for the experience-driven elopement with guests. If that’s you, this step will make planning SO much smoother for you. It’s possible not all of your guests will arrive on the same day, and some guests may just prefer to opt out of some activities and into others. You can track all of this by making a wedding website on a site like Zola and adding a schedule of events into the RSVP list. On your invitations, send guests to the website to RSVP, and they’ll be able to RSVP yes or no to each event of the week. If guests are paying their way for events, list the prices here so they know what they’re signing up for.
Coordinate schedule and guest list with vendors
Once your guests tell you what they plan on participating in, pass the final numbers along to the vendors and coordinate payments. Don’t forget about tips for guides and other vendors! Decide whether your guests will pay the vendor directly or if you’ll pay ahead for the vendor. Make sure the schedule is readily available on the wedding website for guests to check in on when they’re packing.
Once that’s locked in, you’re ready to relax and ENJOY! The wedding week can run smoothly and your vendors will handle coordinating everyone for your experiences.
What to do for your Experience-Driven Elopement
Finally, here’s what you’ve been waiting for! These are some of my favorite ideas on what activities you can choose for your experience-driven elopement. You can choose easy things that don’t require much physical effort - but if you’re feeling extra adventurous, there are options for that too! I’ve listed both.
Easy Ideas for Experience-Driven Elopements
Hiking
Horseback riding
Sunset picnic
Camping
Bonfire
Renting ATVs
Renting kayaks or paddle boards
Renting a boat
Jeep tour
Food tour
Private cooking class
Custom hat making
Fly fishing
Hot springs
Wine tasting
Adventurous Ideas for Experience-Driven Elopements
Backpacking
Rock climbing
Snowmobiling
Helicopter ride
Whitewater rafting
Mountain biking
Hot air ballooning
Dog sledding
Ready to plan your experience-driven elopement?!
If this type of wedding sounds more like you than a traditional ceremony – you and I are on the SAME page! My couples who choose this type of wedding day never regret it and always have so much fun. Ready for that to be you? I’m here for you!