Wedding abroad 'Elopement style' Ideas please!

[lavenderjump]

Me and my partner are recently engaged, we have decided to get married abroad just the two of us and our two small children.

I'm feeling overwhelmed with choice and don't really know where to start.
Ideally looking for somewhere within a 5 hour flight from the UK, beachfront and suitable for small children. We would just like a ceremony, some lovely scenery for photos and then tag a holiday on after.

Does anyone have any recommendations of lovely venues that would be suitable?

Apparently, according to our travel agent, the easiest place to get married abroad is Cyprus but you can't marry on the beach. We went to one of the Greek islands and the hotel pretty much did everything for us and everything was included in the price we paid which was only about £1.5k (for the wedding itself).
That included the ceremony, dressing the beach area, a bouquet and button hole, a bottle of champagne, a cake, and the translation of a full set of documents (2 birth certificates, 2 CONI, 2 passports). The only extra necessary thing we had to pay for was the Apostille stamp for the documents. They were also happy to provide witnesses if we needed them. Photography was extra obviously.
This was an Atlantica hotel with Tui.

Thank you @breakfastdinnerandtea I will have a look at that hotel! Did you book everything through TUI? And did you have any problems with them?

We booked everything through Tui and had no problems at all. They booked it all when we went to the travel agents and everything else was through their wedding coordinators in Greece. They sent an order form where we could decide what we wanted from the bits that were included or we could add extra bits on it and we emailed that over. We had to apostille everything here but we just had to send copies via email and then take the original documents. Everything else was done while we were out there a few days before. It was honestly so easy, I'd do it again in a heartbeat (but I hope not to have to 😂)

@breakfastdinnerandtea Thank you, that sounds suprisingly straight forward! It's good to hear you had a pleasant experience with them, will definitely have a look into it thank you!

We looked at Tui and found it really expensive for what you get!

If you consider Crete I would 100% recommend Sun and Snow weddings. Rue is a British wedding planner who used to work for a big holiday company so has plenty of experience and has an amazing group of British suppliers that she works with.

I am such a control freak normally but let her handle everything! We had a ceremony overlooking the sea with 8 guests and then dinner afterwards at a Greek taverna, it genuinely came in at about 4000 euros all in including hair, make up, photography, legal ceremony, meal etc.

Thank you @lilao do you mind me asking the venue you got married in?

It was called Agios Giorgos Chapel, it was really simple overlooking the sea next to a little Greek Chapel and then we ate at Esperos Taverna in Koutouloufari - it was extremely reasonable I think we paid 300 euros for 10 of us to have a three course dinner and drinks (this was Sept 2023)

I will try and upload some photos!

It won’t let me add professional photos due to their size!

That looks stunning @llilao I've just had a look on the website and there are some stunning venues! Thanks so much for the recommendation!