When Alan Cumming asked The Traitors breakout star Gabby Windey what winning the prize money would mean to her, Gabby said the win “would mean so much,” like maybe she and her girlfriend “could get married.” And, always a Faithful, Gabby made good on her word of a wedding. Except, it wasn’t the three-day celebrity affairs you may be used to seeing in Vogue.
Gabby and comedian Robbie Hoffman eloped in Las Vegas on January 11, 2025 — which the former Bachelorette casually dropped in a March photo dump. While OTT nuptials aren’t going anywhere, popping up out of the blue with the title “husband and wife” (Gabby’s cheeky poke at the patriarchy) has become increasingly common since Covid clapped back at the wedding industrial complex.
Front page news couples (Melanie Lipinski and Jason Ritter, Saoirse Ronan and Jack Lowden, John Mulaney and Olivia Munn, Chrishell Stause and G-Flip) have been getting wed behind the scenes, but the trend isn’t reserved for the A-list.
Elopements have infiltrated my FYP, my favorite podcasts, and my group chat, and I wanted to find out why. And, lucky you, I’m sharing the tips and tricks I found about planning an intimate wedding after speaking with three brides about why they said yes to eloping over a big wedding in 2025.
Why Do People Elope Instead Of Having A Wedding?
Dreaming of a big white wedding as a little girl is a completely normal phenomenon (thank you, mainstream media). However, a 2022 national survey showed that 62% of engaged couples were considering a private elopement instead. Depending on who you ask, an elopement is when a bride and groom get married in private, with a small number or no guests at all, except a witness.
Cason W., a 33-year-old bride from Philadelphia, worked at a local bakery as a teen, so her dream always started with cake. “Seeing couples come in for their tastings…and then watching those cakes get made and decorated on the morning of their wedding was incredible to watch,” she tells me.
Now, Cason is getting married to her fiancé, Ryan, in what some elopement sticklers on Reddit might define as a “micro-wedding.“ But for the couple, “self-uniting” in a state park with their dog, followed by a private dinner with their immediate family, “isn’t really structured like a [traditional] wedding,” so she considers it an elopement.
For 32-year-old Kimberly C. from Los Angeles, a traditional wedding with a “white lacey dress and veil, bow toss, the whole she-bang” was once her vision, too. Now, she and her fiancé Jordan are saying their vows on the shores of Northern Ireland. “We would’ve been more than happy to just have us, the cliffside, and our photographer — but invited our immediate family and a few close friends,” Kimberly shares.
Long Island native Katie R. “never had the wedding bug” or thought much about “what it would look like” until she had to plan one. When the time came, the 32-year-old briefly considered bringing friends to a beach abroad but quickly ditched the thought to get “married in a friend’s backyard.”
So… why are so many brides changing their minds? “My life hasn’t been that traditional, so the traditional wedding dream no longer fits,” Kimberly answers. Though history is made to be rewritten, the roots of a classic wedding (where the bride is “given away” to her new male keeper) couldn’t be more heteronormative.
As Cason began planning, she first checked in with her best friend, whose “biggest piece of advice was to elope,” a trend she kept hearing the more she asked.
“I loved my wedding, but I wouldn’t plan another,” or “It was the perfect day, but I wish we had saved our money” were consistent themes that validated hers and many future wives’ feeling that walking down the aisle just wasn’t for them.
Is An Elopement Really Easier Than A “Traditional” Wedding?
Kimberly’s choice to elope didn’t come quickly. “We actually plotted out a traditional wedding and were about to sign and put a deposit at the venue when we froze,” she says. “The budget kept ballooning, and other people’s preferences kept being added.” As Kimberly tallied up what it takes to make a wedding enjoyable for everyone — a DJ, hors d’oeuvres, late-night snacks, and a seat at the table for every distant cousin — she realized it can weigh on a couple starting a life together.
Cason’s cold feet about the cash spent on a traditional wedding (“people are struggling to keep their weddings under 30k these days”) were right on the money. The average 2024 wedding cost $33k, according to Zola. She’d rather walk the plank than take out a party loan (the kind of financial literacy they don’t mention at the end of a romcom).
Katie also listed money as the biggest motivator but also had another huge element to consider when she got married back in 2021. “Since I got married when COVID was still a problem,” Katie told me, choosing to elope instead of having a big party made it so that she “didn’t have to worry too much about safety.”
Besides expenses, many brides dread the politics of family. Who would be the flower girl, which parents would get the first dance, and how to make a magical seating chart to keep the peace felt daunting, “especially if your dad is one of seven siblings who all have a different definition of what being ‘a good Christian’ is,” Cason admits. The pressure made it feel like “a party for them than just the two of us,” Kimberly similarly shares.
It’s worth mentioning politics can be an issue, too, especially if you have a cousin like Cason’s who settled on “a poorly cropped image of Donald Trump with his fist in the air” as their Facebook profile picture. Just because they’re a blood relative doesn’t mean you have to sign up for defending basic human rights on your big day.
What Are The Cons Of Eloping?
Some of Cason and her fiancé‘s happiest memories are at weddings that made it out of the group chat. “We truly have some of the best friends in the entire world, so it felt like we were slighting them.” Her justification was that she’d “heard from multiple married couples” how “they didn’t get to spend enough time with their friends” because of how busy they were at their celebrations.
For Katie, even though she “never wanted a big wedding,” she still felt “it was hard having a really small one — a lot of friends wanted to be a part of the day and they couldn’t.” Katie also didn’t realize how much the excitement from friends and family to make it “feel like it was a ‘special day’” was to her, until the day happened. She picked up a vibe that “for some people, it was more like we were just checking a box than actually having a wedding.”
For Kimberly, the few she and fiancé will include to hype up their union will travel a long way to be a part of her and her fiancé‘s remote vision. “Not everyone has funds, ability, or means to travel internationally,” she acknowledges, but they’re paying for some elements for their guests to show appreciation.
Feeling good about putting yourself first doesn’t mean an elopement comes without cons. For example, you won’t have a table piled high with gifts and checks to pad your wallet for the honeymoon. A good old-fashioned pros and cons list might be your best bet if you’re on the fence about a small celebration. If there’s anything in either column that’s a hard dealbreaker, you have your answer.
How To Tell People They’re Not Invited To Your Wedding
When it came to breaking the news to their village, Katie getting married during the pandemic simplified things. “People totally understood,” Katie said. In fact, many sent “generous gifts even though they couldn’t come to the wedding,” which surprised and touched Katie deeply.
Cason knew “friends would be easy,” but family, on the other hand, was a different story (her fiancé‘s mother loves planning). So what do you say to a mom or MIL who may be disappointed there won’t be a wedding dress fitting to gush over?
Having an honest conversation with family early on can get the awkward moment out of the way. For Cason it helped to let them know that they’ll still be there and be involved.
On the other hand, Kimberly and her partner “haven’t quite had to broach that topic yet.” But she hopes when she does, being honest about the strictness of the guest list (or lack thereof) will stop friends and family from feeling left out.
There are several schools of thought on who a wedding is truly for, but one thing is for certain. A marriage (at least a legal one in the United States, lolz) is about two people alone. Putting your partner first is pretty much the point of tying the knot. The people who support your love should stay on your team, even if they don’t get a choice of chicken or fish out of it.
