So you’re engaged and eloping! Congratulations on finding your life mate. As you well know there are a number of reasons to elope:

• Need to get married fast
• Want to avoid family drama
• Want to save money
• No interest or time in planning a wedding
• There aren’t many people in your life to make it worth a wedding

While we believe weddings are a way to gather family, friends, and your extended community to celebrate your union we would never tell anyone to not elope. You are simply postponing the union of family and friends for many small occasions where they’ll celebrate your newfound marriage.

Our feeling is that couples may think it is easier to elope but the decision may be met with emotions you were unprepared for:

• Anger
• Shock
• Confusion
• Sadness

Sometimes to appease the negative feelings, couples may have a wedding reception at a later date to gather loved ones. Often couples become shocked when a simple reception turns into the wedding drama and stress they were trying to avoid. All the emotions people have about showing off the new member of the family, about their son or daughter tying the knot, or the lack of control over your decision to elope may result in some madness around the reception.

For whatever reason you chose to elope, trust that you are not escaping family drama. It may show up just before you elope, at the first major family birthday or holiday after your elopement, or at your one year anniversary. Rarely do families accept a new “in-law” without new emotions and attitudes. You are very lucky if everyone in your life is excited about your elopement!!

Wedding planning is often an extended view of the first years of marriage where every stakeholder in your life comes out to express their opinion about you, about everyone in the extended clan, your relationship and your life decisions. By eloping you may be forcing those bottled emotions to spring in any number of surprising ways. Be prepared! While some people make horrible mistakes in wedding planning that haunt them for years into their marriage (attacking in laws during a wedding planning meltdown moment, for example), the choice to elope may be an equally dramatic “mistake” in the eyes of your family.

Our new book Take Back Your Wedding helps you need navigate the landmine of emotions you are about to create or have already created. It’s really about how to be married as a couple with your families — hard lessons you can avoid early in your marriage. Because no matter how the paperwork gets signed, you are creating a new family for each other and making in-laws out of your parents and siblings with your new mate.

An important tool for any engaged couple is to take Premarital Counseling. Many churches require it but outside of that arena, few couples take any pre-marriage education. We have just the tool for you. We offer a premarital inventory called The Couple Check Up, created by one of the nations top marriage inventory companies. For only $30 you will get a personalized report of your relationship, areas of strength and areas of growth opportunity. I took it with my husband and it was an eye opening experience to see how you “stack up” against millions of other couples.

All our best for your marriage and beyond.

The above article was written by Elizabeth Doherty Thomas, who is part of a father/daughter team along with her father Bill Doherty, a family therapist. Together they have a web site (that you may want to visit) at www.thefirstdance.com.