Would you be mad if your child eloped?

I wouldn't so much be upset about not being at the wedding as the fact you'd kept it a secret beforehand. I'd think you couldn't trust me with that and I'd wonder about the depth of our relationship.

I totally understand wanting a very intimate and small wedding. Excluding parents from it doesn't sit well with me though. If relationships are good and positive, I think it's a pity to exclude parents from that milestone moment in their children's lives. I feel it's a moment that parents deserve to witness after putting everything into their children for 30 odd years. My kids are still young, but I would be sad to be excluded from their weddings - even if it was a registry office wedding.

We eloped. Did the Gretna Green thing, had announcement cards printed beforehand, and sent out immediately afterwards. In the following weeks, we hosted two very small events, with close friends, and DHs immediate family. We traveled to my home country a few months later for our honeymoon, and my DPs had a party for us. I loved it all.

However, we had told both sets of DPs that an elopement would happen at some stage, so they wouldn't be too surprised by the event. And while my DM was thrilled ('Oh thank god!' she said when I told her), my MIL was very angry about it. Giving her a heads up beforehand didn't help much. She brought it up for years after.

I would be disappointed if my son wanted to elope, whether I was told or not. I would be sad not to be there to see him get married. I wouldn’t be “mad” about it or bring it up myself, but if asked I would admit I was disappointed.

If he did it without telling me, I'd be very upset and hurt. It's either a self-centred and thoughtless thing to do if he genuinely didn't think/care about our feelings, or a cowardly one if he just didn't want to tell us. Both traits I wouldn't like to see in my son.

I believe couples should do what they want for their wedding day, but they have to accept that other people will have feelings about those choices.

Amen. I've had my wedding. We arranged it in precisely the way we wanted, and I'd want only the same thing for my child and their spouse.

We also eloped. DH's parents were critical, but they'd be critical no matter what we did and didn't hold back over what they thought was wrong with his siblings' weddings.

Everyone else was delighted for us.

Congratulations, OP!

I would completely understand my child's decision to not want a traditional wedding and to get married on holiday without all the usual stress and fuss of loads of guests/expectations etc. I have an adult child and (unlike my own mother) although I would love to be part of her wedding day I do not think she owes that to me or that if she decides to get married without guests it would necessarily be any reflection on our relationship.

However, if she did decide to 'elope' I would be upset if she didn't tell me before hand and left me to find out at the same time as everyone else. It sounds rather stupid written down, but I would like to think we are close enough that she would want me to be 'in the know' and to be able to share her excitement with me before they go. I would also be upset if she decided to invite a few guests and not me. But I would not want to risk our continuing relationship by holding a grudge or not talking to her etc.

Imagine being upset that somebody you love is having possibly the best day of their life.

My nephew did this. Announcement on FB the next day. His sisters and his parents were very upset-although they didn't, as far as they could, let him know.

I seem to be unusual in that I'd rather not know in advance. Because then I'd have time to wish that I was part of it.

If my DD and partner walked in tomorrow and told me they'd got married, I'd be able to just focus on congratulating them, and asking all about it.

I would just elope & say afterwards however if such actions will start WW3 then this sounds a good idea.
Just tell your parents you need to meet for lunch to discuss the wedding then take them to the registry office!
Low-key & they can't complain they didn't know. In fact, they are extra special for being the only ones there!
Let siblings & family know afterwards & maybe have a nice meal when you get back from the holiday.

I honestly wouldn't care, I think marriage is about the two people getting married and the rest is all a bit of a faffy show tbh

It's so incredibly and unnecessarily rude. I'd be furious.

What do you want?

My aunt was devastated when my cousin married - she was married for a year before telling anyone (visa stuff but lengthy committed relationship still going strong a decade later) and it truly broke my aunt's heart.

My dad married without telling us kids in advance, 40 years ago now. I don't think I'll ever shift that feeling of not being even slightly involved in his making a commitment to my step mum - even though I love them both it's always been there somehow.

Don't be a dick. Tell your parents.

I don't see anything wrong with eloping.

I do see a problem marrying a man who doesn't seem to care about your opinion or concerns. Do you want your marraige to be a partnership or dictatorship?

The wedding/marraige shouldn't just be about his wishes. What is important to you needs to be taken into consideration too. He appears very dismissive of your feelings.

My mom has always said she would like to know when her kids are getting married. Even if not invited to the wedding. So they'd be upset, but they would also get over it. But at this point in time I don't really want to upset them with something like this.

My mum and dad went off and got married and I understand why. I suspect my Dd will do this with their best friends as witnesses. Because the idea of a wedding overwhelms my Dd. Even keeping to close family ends up with Dd wanting her godparents there which in turn where do they stop.

I've had to accept there won't be a wedding as it's whatever is right for them.

Yes, we would have done. It was our wedding, and whilst upset about it would have been unfortunate, avoiding that would presumably mean having a wedding we didn’t want, and I would consider that to be even more unfortunate a prospect.

Maybe they just don't feel particularly uplifted or mushy about it? I adored my DP, but though he'd wanted to get married for years, I wasn't keen. In the end we did it for a pressing practical reason. I didn't have any particularly strong emotions, it was just a legal document. It would have been like other people thinking I should have been full of 'joy' signing some kind of contract, and frankly, I didn't want other people imposing their ideas about 'happiness' on me. I am very happy with DH still, but I didn't want other people bringing their own ideas about how I was supposed to feel and making a fuss.

My husband and I eloped and told our family and friends the day after our wedding.

My husband is ND and I have GAD so the thought of a traditional wedding (even a small one) terrified the both of us, I don't think we would have got married if that was our only option.

We chose to tell family after our wedding because we knew my parents would pressure us into having a bigger wedding, which would mean we would have hated our day or done a runner anyway.

Our wedding day was perfect and I wouldn't change a second of it. It was all about us, our commitment to each other and our future. There were no family dramas to navigate and we didn't have to please anyone but ourselves.

When we did tell our families DH's side were really happy for us and supportive. My parents were and are still a very different story. My DM was very hurt and even 4 years down the line won't use my married name and cries if I mention our wedding day. When we have talked about it I have tried to be understanding but firm. I understand she is hurt but I am not apologising for having my wedding how I want it. DM has said that the bit that hurts the most is not doing the mother of the bride stuff and showing off to her family, this just reinforceses why we decided to elope.

If you do decide to go down the traditional elopement route make sure you own your decision and don't try to placate others unless you want to. I would also recommend having a photographer and getting loads of photos. The family and friends that understood our decision were desperate to see pictures of the day.

We didn't have a party when we got back but we did take our families out for a very nice meal to celebrate. I know all apart from my parents so appreciated this.

Oh and we had three reasons for wanting a tiny wedding. Firstly both DH and I hate being the centre of attention, and that's difficult to avoid at a wedding. Secondly while my immediate family is small (mum, sister two nieces) DH's immediate family is much larger and much more entwined so we couldn't for example just invite parents and siblings. And adding partners , children, children's partners, children's children etc would have taken the numbers to 100 very quickly without even starting on friends. Finally, by the time we got married we'd been together nearly 20 years, and it seemed decidedly cheeky to expect people to fork out to celebrate!

We eloped and it was great, exactly what we wanted. My parents were not at all surprised or upset about it, and I know them well enough to believe they weren’t hiding any deeper feelings. Same for my in laws.

@InterIgnis It's great that you and your DH know your parents well enough to know they would not mind. But, knowing them as well as you do, if you had thought they would be upset, would you still have done it?

It sounds to me like the OP does know her parents would be hurt and upset, which is why I think it is the wrong choice for her.

I'd be a bit hypocritical to be upset seeing as my husband and I eloped, and we didn't tell anyone for a few months. I'd probably be a bit said if I had been entirely left in the dark that they were considering marriage, but the eloping would fit in with family tradition.

My FIL tried the 'elope but tell the parents', and MIL's parents kinda took over resulting in them, the kids, and a few others ending up being involved. This is a risk of it that some are fine with, others would want to avoid it and part of why they don't.

I can see why other parents would be very upset, particularly if you have a close relationship with your child as it does have this connotation of not trusting or wanting family involved. That was my reason for eloping (my mother is very anti-marriage, especially for me, so there was no benefit to telling her), my husband had a lovely relationship with his parents, but didn't want them to potentially talk shit about it -- which he was right about. A few years after, my FIL apologised to me because he'd been against it for several reasons and said some less than kind things about me to others and would have tried to talk my husband out of it. I had no idea as he put a happy face on it and never heard about it before he brought it up. He'd changed his mind and then saw we'd picked the best option for us.

We had intended a little party with them and some other family the year after, but life got in the way. We ended up having it on a later anniversary.

We relented and told our mothers a fortnight before (both dads were dead), swore them to secrecy and took them with us. I'm glad we did. My mum would have been absolutely fine with it, but my mil admitted that if we hadn't invited her, even if we had told her beforehand, she would not have spoken to us for months after. [She has form for unfounded jealousy of my side of the family (assumes that we spend all our spare time with my mum and so on, even though we really don't) and even now regularly has a go at DH for supposedly doing more for my mum than he does for her. ] I think if we'd eloped properly as we meant she would have assumed that my mother knew beforehand and the fallout would have been immense.

Inviting them both meant that we avoided all that aggro, but still had the tiny wedding we wanted.