Carey Provost's wedding had everything: the venue, a peony-festooned farmhouse; the dinner, wild mushroom tortellini and halibut with verjus; a guinea-feather strewn aisle, photographer and videographer standing by.
"The only thing missing were guests," reports Alex Williams in a trend piece for The New York Times.
Decadent elopements are on the rise among couples who don't want to splurge on their guests, just on themselves, then repost the opulent scenes on Facebook, Pinterest and wedding blogs.
"When you have guests, we felt like it ends up being more for them, not for the bride and groom. We wanted it to be for us," Ms. Provost told the Times, adding, "There wasn't a distant cousin or mother or girlfriend there adding stress."
Another couple arranges their elopement at a lodge in the Rockies:
"After a private ceremony, which was held next to a fireplace covered in hyacinths, the couple retreated to an outdoor ice rink just as the sun was setting. There, James Christianson, a prominent wedding photographer, snapped away as [Shalini]Carbone, wearing a 1920s-style ball gown and a vintage beaver wrap, circled the ice with her new husband, against a backdrop of snow-dusted mountain peaks. Afterward, they set off sparklers and posed some more for the camera."
Public spectacle seems to be the key: Gone are the days of Elvis snapping off a few shots with a disposable camera, as couples shell out for top photographers and then post their no-expense-spared ceremonies to wedding-gasm blogs such as Ruffled, Style Me Pretty, Green Wedding Shoes and 100 Layer Cake.
To further shed the stigma, the NYT reports that planners are starting to call these over-the-top elopements "private ceremonies."
The writer asks the obvious: Isn't the whole point of eloping to avoid the increasingly ridiculous visions promulgated by the wedding industry? And the cost? The menu-embossed chocolates, lavish save-the-date cards and trendy whoopie pies for all?
Extravagent elopements now range from $10,000 to $100,000 (U.S.), the Times reports, outrageous given that the average wedding (with guests) cost about $27,000 (U.S.) in the United States and $23,000 in Canada last year.
Still, one could argue that fancy elopements at the lower end are still cheaper and less stressful than dealing with hundreds of guests.
Is an indulgent elopement the height of selfishness? Or is it actually more honest than putting your loved ones through exorbitant minutiae ahead of your big day?