One of the biggest questions my couples ask me when they decide they want to elope in private, just the two of them: how do we still include the people we love? How do you plan a day that revolves around YOU, that focuses on your love story and your relationship and what you want, while also honoring the people that mean the most in your lives? Over my years photographing elopements, I’ve seen that there are sooo many amazing ways you can include family + friends in your elopement without them actually being guests. So don’t worry—you can absolutely do both: elope in private AND feel the love + support of your favorite humans at the same time. 

10 Ways to Include Family + Friends In Your Elopement

1. Read their letters

This is hands down one of my favorite elopement activities to include your family + friends on your elopement day when you want it to just be you two! Before your elopement, ask a few of your loved ones to write you letters that you can open + read on your elopement day. They can write about how much they love you, share meaningful memories they have of the two of you and your relationship, show you their support. . . there are endless ways that a little bit of writing on paper can really bring the love of your family members and friends to your elopement, even if they aren’t physically there. This is a great way to sort of replace the traditional toasts + speeches that couples have at bigger weddings, since that’s often when loved ones will stand up and share meaningful words!

It’s up to you when you want to open these letters—you could open them while you get ready for your elopement to really add to the emotions/anticipation, or you could wait until your ceremony is over and you’re popping a bottle of celebratory champagne. You could even read them out loud during your ceremony if you wanted to, or have your officiant read a few of the most touching sentences before you exchange your vows. Don’t feel like you need to decide this before your elopement day, you can also just go with the flow and open them whenever it feels right.

2. FaceTime them while you get ready

Modern technology is freaking incredible y’all, so use it to your advantage! You might be missing your loved ones a little extra while you get ready for your elopement, since that’s the time during a traditional wedding day when you’d be surrounded by your closest people + having their help and support as you prepare for your ceremony. It’ll probably be a pretty emotional, exciting, and memorable part of your elopement day (whether you two are getting ready separately or together), so it’s an amazing time to pull out your phone and FaceTime your loved ones! Let them show their support while you put on the final touches, and show them how incredible you look when you’re all dressed up and ready to go. This can be really calming if you’re feeling anxious before your ceremony and just need your personal cheerleaders to love on you a bit 🙂

3. Livestream your ceremony

Speaking of technology, another way to include your loved ones on your elopement day is to invite them to watch your ceremony via livestream. The caveat of this is that you’ll need some sort of Wi-Fi or strong cell service, so it may not be possible if you’re eloping out in the middle of nowhere, with no cell towers in sight. However, if you’re having your ceremony at, say, an Airbnb or cabin that has Wi-Fi, you can easily set up a tripod + livestream your ceremony for your friends and family back home to watch! There are SO many ways to do this—Zoom, Facebook, Instagram. . . ever since COVID it’s been super easy to share big moments with people from literally across the world.

4. Have them send in video speeches

If you like the idea of having your loved ones write you letters to read at your elopement, you could also take it up a notch and have them record videos for you to watch. Maybe these are videos wishing you luck before your ceremony, or videos that you watch while you’re having a mountaintop picnic at sunset after you’ve already tied the knot. It can essentially be a way for you to listen to heartfelt speeches from your friends + fam as if they were really there with you, toasting glasses of champagne and sharing their best memories with you. These videos can be full-on speeches or they can be as simple as people wishing you luck and sending their love from afar! 

5. Include photos of them in your decor

If you’re sad that you won’t have photos with your fam + friends on your elopement day, you can include photos of them in your decor instead! Maybe you have framed pictures of your loved ones at your dinner table, placed around your ceremony location, or you hang a few photos up at your Airbnb. One time I had a couple print out photos of their dogs and put them on popsicle sticks to hold up during their portraits—it was hilarious and you could totally do the same thing with your loved ones!

Another way you could include photos of your loved ones is in a slideshow, maybe that you put up on a projector or the TV at your Airbnb. The slideshow could be filled with photos of your relationship, the people you love, special memories, whatever you want, and you could watch it while you eat dessert or after having your private first dance in the middle of your cozy cabin in the woods.

6. Incorporate heirloom pieces/mementos into your details

Another great way to feel like your people are with you in spirit is to include meaningful heirloom pieces or mementos in your outfit, details, decor, etc. Maybe you really wish your grandma could be there with you, so you wear a bracelet she gave you years ago. Or maybe it’s super important to you that you have a piece of your mom with you during your ceremony, so you wear the headpiece she wore on her own wedding day. This could even be as simple as gathering a few small items from the people you love and including them in your detail photos/flatlays along with your rings, vow books, flowers, etc. This way you can feel their presence throughout your elopement day even if they’re in another city, state, country, etc. and be reminded of how much they love you.

7. Meet up with them the next day

One of my personal favorite ways for couples to include loved ones in their elopement is to make it a multi-day celebration. I honestly think it’s the BEST option out of all of them, because it gives you the chance to celebrate on your own, just the two of you, AND celebrate with all the people you love the most. 

There are sooo many ways you could organize your elopement into multiple days—you could have a private hiking adventure + elopement ceremony one day, and then meet up with your friends + fam the next day for brunch, or a day out on the lake. 

You could also switch it around and spend a day with everyone first, maybe going on an epic adventure through the mountains followed by a romantic dinner at a local restaurant—and then elope in private the next day somewhere nearby. The ways you could create your multi-day elopement timeline are ENDLESS, so I’ll be totally happy to help you figure out what’s best for you. In fact, I’ve even got a whole guide with My Top 3 Tips for a Smooth AF Elopement Timeline that you can read now!

8. Invite them to a later celebration

If you like the idea of celebrating with your guests on a separate day but don’t want it to be so soon before/after your ceremony—or if your guests aren’t able to travel out to your elopement location—you can plan a later celebration back home, closer to where everyone lives. This could be as simple as an intimate group dinner at your fave restaurant, or it could be as intricate as a full-on wedding reception with 100 guests, a DJ, and a dance floor! Whether you plan it for a week after your elopement, a month, or for your one-year anniversary, this is such a great way to invite your loved ones to participate in your celebration and make sure you have quality time to create lifelong memories together.

9. Gift them an album

I am SUCH a huge proponent of investing in heirloom wedding albums after your elopement day so that you have a physical, tangible way to look back on those special memories forever. And a great way to share photos from your day with loved ones who couldn’t be there is to gift them a duplicate album of your own! When I help you design your elopement album, we’ll make sure it highlights all the most important parts of the day and really allows your family + friends to feel like they were there in the room with you. You can purchase duplicate albums in a smaller size to gift to your closest people, and that way they can look back at those memories with you in a really incredible way—there’s nothing as special as thumbing through a gorgeous, high-quality, handcrafted album that tells the story of your elopement day. 

If you want to learn more about albums, check out my blog post where I tell you Why I Want You to Buy a Physical, Personalized Wedding Album.

10. Invite them to your shared photo gallery

If you love the thought of your loved ones having access to your elopement photos so they can see everything that happened, but maybe you don’t have the budget to invest in additional albums, then you can simply invite them to view your photo gallery! When I’m done editing your images, I’ll send you a link to a beautiful online gallery where you and your loved ones can view your high-res photos, and order all sorts of prints + physical products to display in your homes. It’s super easy for your friends and family to look through the photos on their phone or laptop, and order framed photographs to put up on their walls, or to gift to you—maybe for your first anniversary. You can favorite the photos you love the most, save them to your phone, really do whatever you want with them, and your loved ones will be so thankful that they also get to see the entire story of your day!

---

So, what do you think? Do you feel like you have plenty of options now for including your loved ones in your elopement, even if it will just be the two of you? I hope so 🙂 Let’s get you booked so we can start planning your special day + brainstorming how we can incorporate the people you love most into your day! Don’t forget to browse through my Blog for more planning tips + resources, or check out a couple of related blogs below that I think you’ll love.

15 Meaningful Ways to Include Your Kids in Your Elopement

How to Plan a Meaningful Elopement: My Top 10 Tips