My Own Private "I Do"

"Everyone's driving me crazy...this is supposed to be our wedding day. Why did we invite all these people?!"

— Pam, The Office, "Niagara"

Fiction gives us many weddings. Sometimes, the couple is forced to Altar the Speed, maybe due to meddling parents or a baby on the way. The couple doesn't want to move the date up, but something or someone else is forcing them to do it. Sometimes, the couple just elopes, and avoids the big wedding mess altogether.

But every now and then, a couple ends up having TWO weddings — one for themselves, and one for everyone else. This usually takes two forms:

Elope First, Plan Later: The couple elopes, but before they can tell anyone, somebody says something to make them feel guilty for not including everyone. So they end up planning a large ceremony/reception after all. The couple will have to jump through hoops to prevent anyone from finding out they're already married. The secret may or may not be spilled, but ultimately, it won't matter.

Plan First, Elope Later: In this case, the couple is planning a big wedding, but everything starts to fall apart. With all the arguments and drama, their friends and family are driving them crazy. They decide to run away after all. Expect a very random Justice of the Peace as they find a quick and easy way to get married. Afterwards—though this is not guaranteed—they might return to planning a big wedding to have a wonderful stress-free time, with their families being none the wiser. In this case, the secret will almost never be revealed.

Do note that many jurisdictions require at least two adult witnesses for the ceremony, requiring a generous definition of "private" as the couple would have to ask their closest non-judgmental friends to fill that role. Still, this trope is almost always a Heartwarming Moment. The couple is showing that getting married is far more important than having a big flashy wedding, and they'd rather handle things on their own terms. Arguments about flowers and who escorts whom take away from the beauty of the day, and they refuse to let that happen. But they still care about their friends and families too much to deny them a celebration. But the real ceremony will always be the one the couple cherishes.

Both types are a major Truth in Television. The Trope name is a play on the title of the film My Own Private Idaho, which has absolutely nothing to do with this trope. See also Altar the Speed, Metaphorical Marriage and Elopement.

---

Examples:

Elope First, Plan Later

Anime and Manga

• Paranoia Agent played with this one, but they're actually having the second service to get photographs for nostalgia purposes.

Comic Books

• A storyline in Spider-Man revealed that Peter Parker's parents, Richard Parker and Mary Fitzwilliam, had a secret wedding early on due to their busy lives as secret agents, only having a larger, "official" wedding later on when their lives were more stable. This provided a vital clue to Aunt May that the seemingly returned Richard and Mary were fakes (they were Life Model Decoys created by Chameleon and the Vulture on behalf of Harry Osborn/the Green Goblin), as the false Richard and Mary knew nothing of their "early" marriage where May was one of the few people to know the truth.

Comic Strips

• Michael and Deanna in For Better or for Worse secretly got married before they moved in together, but later had a big fancy wedding for Deanna's mother to plan.

Fanfiction

• The Pieces Lie Where They Fell: In the sequel Picking Up the Pieces, Sweet Surprise explains that she and her marefriend and coltfriend had a private wedding in Las Pegasus so they wouldn't be swarmed by the press and media.

Film — Animated

• In The Princess and the Frog, Tiana and Naveen's real wedding happens in the swamp while they're frogs, as that's what breaks the spell and turns them human again, but once they become human again, they have a conventional church ceremony for their families and to be legally wed.

Film — Live-Action

• In Brooklyn, Eilis and Tony quickly get married at city hall before she has to leave for her native Ireland as a promise that she will come back to Brooklyn for him.
• It Happened One Night: Ellie and King Westley have eloped before the movie starts. When Ellie is reunited with her father, she decides to have a large, public ceremony.
• The Wedding Banquet: Wai-tong and Wei-wei have a low-key wedding, but a chance encounter with an old friend of Wai-tong's father leads them to organize a by-the-book traditional wedding ceremony, complete with lavish banquet and dozens of guests.

Literature

• Meg Langslow Mysteries: Meg's brother Rob and his girlfriend Delaney are pushed into letting their mothers plan a super-extravagant wedding for them, but they sneak off with Meg and Michael to get married in private ahead of time to take off the pressure and help them get through a wedding that is completely not their own style.
• X-Wing Series: Corran Horn and Mirax Terrik quietly got married in a small ceremony by Wedge Antilles, acting as captain of the Lusankya, in order to head off an outburst by Mirax's dad (since Corran's father had been the officer who sent Booster Terrik, a notorious smuggler, to prison). They later had a more traditional ceremony once it was too late for Booster to do anything.

Live-Action TV

• Pat and Pran from Bad Buddy essentially elope, though they don't get married and can't legally do so in Thailand anyway, by traveling to the beach unannounced after fighting with their respective parents. They refer to their time there as a "honeymoon" and affirm their commitment to one another, including figuring out how to deal with their parents.
• Niles and Daphne from Frasier. They elope in Reno, and are then guilted into not one, but two more ceremonies to make the family happy. It got really silly, and eventually the cover is blown and they 'fess up.
  • In the end-credits scene, they're seen having yet another wedding ceremony, so that Alice can be a flower girl.
• On Dharma & Greg, the title couple elope on their first date, getting married in Vegas. Naturally Greg's conservative parents are shocked, and the two wind up having a more traditional ceremony a few episodes later.
• On General Hospital, Ned whisked Lois off to get married when he realized that his other girlfriend Katherine was going to blackmail him into marrying her, feeling that if he had to be a bigamist, he would at least be legally married to Lois rather than Katherine. When the shit eventually hit the fan, it took nearly a year for Ned and Lois to reconcile, but they marked their new beginning by renewing their vows with a elaborate wedding ceremony attended by all their family friends.
• Goodbye My Princess: Cheng Yin and Xiao Feng are the only people present at their first wedding. Then they have a public wedding held by Xiao Feng's grandfather.
• In Once Upon a Time, we find out that Snow White and Prince Charming actually had a private wedding officiated by Lancelot, a knight of the Round Table before the big ceremony seen in the pilot so that Charming's mother would see them marry before she died of a poisoned wound.
• In the short-lived 1990's series Missing Persons, a high society couple elope on the eve of their excessively-planned wedding. Their parents eventually get a phone call, which relays the marriage ceremony being conducted without fuss in a small church.
• In the Season 2 premiere of One Tree Hill it's revealed that Nathan and Haley's sudden marriage was of the Elope First, Plan Later variety. The only people that were present were Haley's parents, as Nathan needed their permission to marry her (he was emancipated; she wasn't, as they were only sixteen). Brooke throws them a wedding reception to make up for not being at the wedding, and "bachelor" and "bachelorette" parties ensue later in the season. At the end of Season 3, they have a vow renewal so everyone can be present$ except for Haley's parents, who joke that they went to her first wedding and "it was kind of boring."

Theatre

• In Abie's Irish Rose, Abie and Rose Mary ultimately have three weddings: a Methodist wedding before their feuding parents get involved, a Jewish wedding to please Abie's father, and a Catholic wedding to please Rose Mary's father.

Video Games

• Love of Magic: Emily marries Owyn in an impromptu exchange of oaths as he is dying from dragon fire, completing the Mantle of the Once and Future King and healing him. They later have a big fancy wedding at Camelot that everyone can attend.

Webcomics

• Ethan and Lilah in Ctrl+Alt+Del run away to Jamaica, and then decide to have the big wedding after all. Hiding their already-married status until the big wedding day becomes a big plot point (and a source of blackmail for one character).

Western Animation

• In the Bojack Horseman series finale, when Bojack is surprised that Judah would leave his own wedding to work, Princess Carolyn admits that the two of them had a private ceremony a week ago and this wedding was simply for networking purposes. Bojack is offended that he wasn't invited to the real wedding, but is nonetheless flattered that he's still considered important enough to attend the industry one, considering all that happened.

Real Life

• Prince Harry and Meghan Markle admitted in their interview with Oprah that three days before their big royal wedding, they secretly got married at their home with just themselves and the Archbishop of Canterbury in attendance. In their hearts, they both consider that to be their real wedding, while the royal spectacle was just for show. Though under English law such a marriage is illegal; weddings need at least two witnesses (the couple themselves and a clergyman don't count) to be valid. Incidentally the Archbishop of Canterbury denies even knowing about the secret wedding, much less presiding over it.

Plan First, Elope Later

Comic Books

• Star Wars: Union: Luke and Mara do the Plan First, Elope Later style, partly on Corran's advice—they have a private Jedi wedding, and a public wedding after that.

Fanfiction

• In the Danny Phantom story Ghosts in the Closet, one of the subplots involves Danny and Sam's engagement, during which Sam clashes with her mother because her mother wants the wedding to be big and traditional, which goes against Sam's tastes. Fortunately, Danny comes up with a solution: On the eve before their human wedding, they sneak off into the Ghost Zone to have a ghost wedding first, with every ghost Danny ever met being in attendance.
• In the Tales of Symphonia fanfiction Worth It, (the last in a series of eight) Zelos and Sheena find themselves facing two weddings in order to keep the peace - a huge, pretentious, overly-extravagant wedding held by the King in Meltokio and a long, boring, stuffy, traditional wedding in Mizuho. Neither wedding appeals to the couple, and as they are bound and determined to enjoy their own wedding, they grab Lloyd and Colette as witnesses and have a private ceremony at the hot springs.
• In The Betrothal Contract Harry, as heir to the Black estate, is contractually required to marry Snape, as heir to the Prince estate. Frustrated with increasingly elaborate plans for what Harry regards as a circus, he and Snape take off for a private bonding.
• In Stricken: Principles of Lust Ron and Hermione elope after Ron's mother hijacks the wedding plans. Since it was Harry's idea, they joke that he can pay for the public bonding ceremony later on.

Film — Live-Action

• In Grumpier Old Men, Gustafson's daughter and Goldman's son are planning a wedding, but it falls apart under pressure. In the end they show a wedding ceremony, which turns out to be for Goldman and Maria Ragetti. The kids reveal they eloped.
• At the beginning of Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Reed and Susan have a huge wedding planned, but between the invasion of first the media and then aliens, it does not go off well. At the end of the film, they find themselves in Japan and decide on the spur of the moment that it's as good a place as any to get married, with only their closest friends and some curious Japanese bystanders as witnesses. (Though, when Reed gets a call at the end of the ceremony—"Venice is sinking into the Adriatic!"—they still end up having to skip to the end.)

Literature

• Played with in book 2 of The Hunger Games, where the characters claim to have eloped in advance of the big day, so that they can claim to have a baby on the way without, presumably, offending anyone's moral standards.
• In one of The Dresden Files side stories, Billy and Georgia have their wedding, but it ultimately gets screwed up, largely in part to Georgia's (evil) stepmother, and a faerie hitman with a grudge against Billy. Legally, they were married during that ceremony, but afterwards, they have a proper (if smaller) ceremony at the local church with just them, Father Forthill, Dresden, and Murphy.
• An unusual variant occurs in The Time Travelers Wife, where the fancy wedding goes off without a hitch — except that it's the titular groom's future self, rather than his present self, who ends up standing at the altar. When his present self gets back to the present, he and his wife stop by a justice of the peace just to make sure that this version of him is officially married as well.
• Played with in Patricia Briggs' River Marked: Mercy and Adam are planning a big wedding, but it's getting out of hand and all the pressure is starting to drive Mercy nuts. So they decide to have a quiet advance wedding at Mercy's church, but she wears her dress anyway since she already has it... All her family and friends are there, because Adam knew she would regret doing it without them, and they basically have the wedding they'd planned in the first place, just without the performance anxiety and scaled back a bit.
• In Closer to the Heart, the wedding of the new King's Own Herald is pounced upon as a chance to make a grand state ceremony complete with international guests for comparatively low-pressure talks. King's Own Herald Amily and Herald Mags smile, nod, agree that the whole plan makes sense... then duck out, consider their track records, and decide that while they will go through the motions on schedule they will actually wed the first afternoon he, she, and her father have the same afternoon free to visit a priest they know will keep his mouth shut.
• In book 3 of the Wax and Wayne series, The Bands of Mourning, the arranged wedding of Waxillium Ladrian and Steris Harms is halted when a water tower on the building next to the church collapses and floods the church before they can say "I Do". Wax is secretly pleased, as he still hasn't gotten over the tragic events of the previous novel. At the end, Waxillium arranges for he and Steris to be met on their return to Elendel by a priest. Wax and Steris have fallen in love over the course of their adventure, and Wax has come to terms with his grief. When he proposes to Steris, asking her to marry him on the spot not for duty or politics but because they love each other, Steris tearfully points out that everyone will be expecting a huge wedding:
  Steris: Tonight? So soon? Don't the others deserve to attend a wedding?
  Wax: They did attend one. It's not our fault their wasn't a marriage at the end.

Live-Action TV

• Mad About You - After days of meddling family members and one disaster after another, Paul and Jamie "escape" the night before their wedding and end up getting married by a ConEd worker who also happens to be a licensed minister (played by Lyle Lovett) in a construction zone in the middle of the night. They go through with their big ceremony the next day, and the family never finds out.
  • In the series finale years later, after their daughter is born, they run into the minister on the street (on their anniversary no less) and discover he wasn't a real minister after all (Paul met him in a strip club during the bachelor party after all). He lied so they could have a stress-free wedding the next day. Paul and Jamie then reveal that since they thought they were married already they used silly fake names on the actual marriage certificate as a private joke (meaning they've never been legally married and their daughter was actually born out of wedlock). Hilarity ensues as they panic and try to find a way to get married that day so they can keep the same anniversary. They end up pulling this trope again.
• How I Met Your Mother: After one too many things go wrong on Lily and Marshall's big day they go outside to get some air. Ted reminds them that they originally wanted a simple, garden ceremony and only arranged the big wedding to please their families. As the core group are all present, Lily and Marshall decide to get married quietly in the garden with Barney officiating. Once this is done, they go back inside and are much calmer about doing the big ceremony for the rest of their guests.
  • The show had an episode centered around this earlier in the same season, also with Marshall and Lily. Lily doesn't want a big wedding, feeling it would be awkward since she stood Marshall up for their first one, so the gang head off to Atlantic City for a quick wedding. Problems arise when they realize that you need a marriage license, and that it will take a couple of days. They end up going out to international waters to be wed by a ship captain, but ultimately decide to wait and have a big wedding after all.
• The American version of The Office. Pam is frustrated by the way their friends are behaving at their big Niagara wedding. She and Jim run off to get married on a boat under the waterfall—which he'd prepared ahead of time, just in case this happened. Cut to them back in the church, going through with the big ceremony for their friends, and truly enjoying it because the important part was already done and now they can just relax and celebrate.
  • Even earlier that season, they were planning to sneak off during the day with no fanfare and just get married, but they stop by Michael's party first and realize they both actually want to go through with a big cheesy reception with all their friends and family partying and celebrating with them.
• On Martin, Marin and Gena get fed up with their families and cancel the wedding in favor of a private ceremony with only Pam, Tommy, and Babyface as witnesses.
• On Scrubs, Turk and Carla's planned big wedding fails to materialise when Turk gets held up in surgery and then goes to the wrong church. They still have the reception, but only get actually married at the hospital later that day when Turk goes back to check on his patient (who reveals he is a priest).
  • Earlier that season, they almost go through with a quickie wedding after Carla loses her mom but Turk realizes she's just having an emotional reaction and they (especially she) would end up regretting not having a real wedding ceremony with all their friends and family.
• In the Grand Finale of The Latest Buzz, the stress of planning an enormous wedding (mostly to please D.J.'s mother) causes D.J. and Mr Shepherd to split up. When the kids at Teen Buzz find out, the arrange a private ceremony on the roof of the building and trick D.J. and Shepherd into turning up under false pretenses. They realise they really do love each other and go through with the ceremony.
• invokedBoston Legal: Shirley and Carl end up doing this when her priest and his rabbi nearly come to blows about how the wedding will run. They have a rather nasty fight - and then Shirley walks in, apologises, tells him that the only truly important thing is that she's marrying him, and agrees enthusiastically when he suggests eloping. They end up having a double ceremony with Alan and Denny in Nimmo Bay. Viewers pulled out hankies. They don't elope, but their wedding is much quieter than originally planned, blending the two halves of this trope.
• In Castle, after Castle's sudden disappearance and subsequent amnesia prevented him from marrying Beckett as they had planned, the two of them were in a holding pattern as the reconsidered suitable wedding dates. Toward the end of "The Time Of Your Life", when Castle saw a world in which he and Beckett never met, he decided that he did not want to delay their wedding a minute longer. Beckett agreed and the two of them were married in an intimate service attended by their immediate family.
• On Desperate Housewives, Susan and Mike are planning their wedding, with Susan going way over the top by trying to top Bree's and Gaby's recent weddings. When she sees the stress that it's putting on Mike, she decides to cancel the big wedding and surprise him with a small, private ceremony in the woods.
• Murder, She Wrote: In "The Sicilian Encounter", Michael Hagerty performs a private wedding ceremony for a couple so they can escape the attentions of an overly protective Mafia family. Of course, Hagerty is only posing as a priest...
• Political Animals: Doug and Annie, who have been been roped into planning a bigger engagement party and wedding then they wanted due to Doug's mother's political career, decide to elope in the season finale. Subverted when Doug's twin brother T.J. deduces where they ran off to (from an earlier talk with Doug). As a result, the groom's entire family shows up, with food, drink, and Secret Service agents in tow, and his father Bud performs the nuptials.
• The Flash (2014): In the Crisis on Earth-X crossover, Barry and Iris started to have a proper ceremony, but then Nazis crashed the party. Once that mess was cleaned up they decided they weren't up for a do-over. Oliver and Felicity mentioned that Diggle was ordained, so they brought him in to officiate as as they exchanged their rings and vows on the spot. Oliver and Felicity decided to jump in and elope alongside them as well.
• In Poldark, Caroline and Dwight are planning on a big extravagant wedding, fitting Caroline's sweet personality. Before the planned date, he gets surprise shore leave from the Navy, so they spontaneously decide to marry in secret, and have a much larger society wedding after.

Manga

• In Wild Rock, Emba takes Yuuen away in the middle of their ceremony to make their own vows of eternity alone.

Webcomics

• Evangelion 303: Touji nearly ends up ruining his relationship with Hikari after he gets a lap dance during his bachelor party. After a day of arguing, they end up getting a Vegas wedding at three in the morning with Shinji and Asuka acting as witnesses. It's never stated if they still planned on having the regular wedding, but it's implied that they just told everyone else when they woke up.

Web Original

• Discussed the CollegeHumor sketch called "How to Plan a Wedding: The Honest Version," Katie (the bride-to-be) suggests eloping to Vegas after becoming frustrated with wedding vendors and not really wanting to upgrade the photography package. Mike says it's too late, because he's already put the down-payment on the DJ.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight, because Mike and Katie are an actual married couple.

Western Animation

• In Rocko's Modern Life, when Filburt and Dr. Hutchison get married, they have a big, traditional wedding planned. But because their families (cats and turtles) don't get along, and because Dr. Hutchison's mother was too involved, the couple have a Drive-Thru wedding before appearing at the park where the ceremony was to be held.
• On The Simpsons, Ned Flanders and Edna Krabappel have a private wedding due to the townspeople tendency to make a big deal out of everything (the only ones in attendance were the kids and Ned's parents).

Miscellaneous/Other

Anime and Manga

• Inverted in The Secret Agreement, where Iori conducts his own private "I don't" when he only pretends to drink from the marriage cup that is part of his Arranged Marriage ceremony. His sister, who is under the illusion that he just doesn't like taking food from people who aren't her or their mother, notices it and laughs about it privately with Yuuichi, who recognizes it for what it is—Iori symbolically indicating that even if he's married, his love is only pledged to Yuuichi.
• In GTO: The Early Years, Ryuji and Ayumi sneak into an empty church at night and say private vows to each other (without a priest or witnesses). Too bad she leaves the next day.

Comic Strips

• In Safe Havens Jenny and Luis elope off screen when they accidentally turned into a drive thru chapel instead of a fast food joint and decided they were ready. If anything, that shows just how much Jenny loves Luis: the normally greedy and materialistic Jenny gave up thousands in wedding presents to marry Luis.
• Retail: Cooper and Val decided to just go down to the courthouse and get married there so they could spend the money on a honeymoon in Hawaii instead. The deal was Cooper had to tell everyone at work they're married, while Val had to tell her parents. Cooper and Marla agree he got the better end of the deal. Val also notes that her father was fine with it because that was money he didn't have to spend either, while her mother was disappointed that it wasn't a Shotgun Wedding...and then starts hounding Val for grandchildren.

Fanfiction

• In an Empath: The Luckiest Smurf mini-story, Polaris Psyche and his female Smurf bride have a private ceremony where they follow a modified form of a Psychelian bonding ritual of two Psyches touching hands before a Psychelian cleric, which Empath operates as during the ceremony. This is then followed by a public recital of vows before their fellow Smurfs at the wedding reception as they get their pictures taken.
• In Another Rainy Day in Nerima, the "From the Icy Jaws of Defeat" timeline has Ranma and Shampoo marry by simply filing their marriage licenses because, as Shampoo explains, it wouldn't make sense to have a big ceremony only for them and Cologne being the only ones there. She also has a proper ceremony planned for later when they're back to China.
  • Implied to have happened as well in the "A Different Kind of Circumstances" timeline, as Ranma and Shampoo are shown to have married without anyone of their friends knowing until they saw the rings at their fingers.

Film — Live-Action

• Will Riker and Deanna Troi in Star Trek: Nemesis have a Starfleet wedding in dress uniform on Earth, and then plan to have a Betazoid ceremony for Lwaxanna's benefit. That one gets postponed by the main events of the film's plot, and it's never stated whether or not it ultimately happens.

Literature

• In All Dressed in White, Meghan and Jeff had an extremely low-key wedding; they got married at a courthouse and had margaritas and take-out barbecue at their apartment in lieu of a reception. They didn't invite any of their friends and family, with Meghan's friend Kate not even realising they were getting married until Meghan told her after the fact in a phone call. The reason they opted for this over a more traditional wedding is because they knew many people didn't approve of their relationship and would gossip about them, given that fifteen months ago Jeff was supposed to be marrying Meghan's best friend - for whom she was a bridesmaid - until she mysteriously disappeared.
• The Bands of Mourning begins with a political wedding between Wax and Steris, attended by their relatives, with an elaborate ceremony in a nice church. That wedding gets crashed by Wax's best friend Wayne, who doesn't think they should get married, and the church is ruined. Wax likes Steris and wants to keep his word to marry her, but he isn't sure he loves her until they go adventuring together. The book ends with them getting married in a small chapel with a simple ceremony attended only by the priest (who was informed of this ahead of time). As Wax points out, they don't need to give their relatives and friends a wedding because they already had one, just one that didn't end with a marriage.
• In the novel Breach of Promise by Perri O'Shaughnessy, Mike and Lindy Markey are revealed to have had their own private "I do," at a small church in Mexico. However, unlike most examples of this trope, they never do get around to having a "real" wedding, and their ceremony in Mexico has no legal force. This causes some serious problems for Lindy, when Mike has an affair with a younger woman and wants to kick her out of his life... They eventually do get back together and get married legally.
• In Papa Married a Mormon, precursor to The Great Brain books, Tom Sr. and Tena marry four times. Tom whisks Tena away to Salt Lake City, where they get married by a justice of the peace a few days before her eighteenth birthday. When she turns eighteen, they go back and marry again. Shortly before the birth of their first child, the bishop agrees to marry them in a private Mormon ceremony and even fudges the date so no one will say anything about the child. Years later, they have small Catholic ceremony when Tom Sr is on his deathbed.
• An interesting variant in I Shall Wear Midnight, where Tiffany marries Roland and Letitia in a folk ceremony the night before the official ceremony, because it boosts the narrative significance (and therefore the power) of what she's doing, i.e. stopping the Cunning Man.
• In The Missus, Maxim and Alessia have a small, lowkey wedding in Albania with only a few family and friends in attendance, due to Alessia's traditionalist father demanding they marry before returning to the UK; he's not thrilled about Maxim deflowering Alessia outside of marriage, not to mention he now knows she was targeted by human traffickers, and wants to guarantee Maxim will provide for her. Maxim and Alessia consider having a much larger, grander wedding in the UK, but they're unsure about the legality of this.
• In Through Fiery Trials, the tenth book of the Safehold series, a Rescue Romance develops between the Empire of Charis' Crown Princess, Alahnah, and Lywys Whytmyn, grandson of the Imperial Navy's most Worthy Opponent. Having been let in on Safehold's secret history as a Lost Colony, and knowing that it is very possible their days are numbered, they decide to marry while they can. Between a stable domestic situation, Alahnah's place on the dynastic food chain, and her parents' approval of the couple, there are few obstacles in their way. However, there are still some and, as a result, they settle for a private ceremony with close friends and family present, secretly married by Archbishop Maikel Staynair with every intention of making it official when they're able. (Due to the privacy of the ceremony, Maikel takes the opportunity to use some old Anglican liturgy instead of the Church of God Awaiting's official rites, since everyone attending is a member of the inner circle.)

Live-Action TV

• On Gilmore Girls, Lane and Zach's weddings put an interesting twist on this pattern. The first wedding is a Buddhist wedding to satisfy Lane's grandmother from Korea, the second wedding is a proper Seventh Day Adventist wedding for Lane's mother and extended family in America, and then the reception is done in a style more appropriate to the couple themselves.
• In My Wife and Kids Junior and Vanessa marry in Las Vegas to escape from a over-the-top marriage.
• In Night Court, Bull Shannon - noting that most of his friends and family are at each other's throats regarding the plans for his upcoming wedding - winds up improvising a ceremony on the courthouse roof while insuring that everyone's complaints get addressed. He stops the fight between his fiancee Wanda and his mother over Wanda's refusal to wear a family heirloom wedding dress by having the dress tailored into a formal jacket for himself. He stops the fight between Harry and Art over who will be the Best Man by asking Harry to perform the ceremony, having Art give the bride away and choosing Roz as his Best Woman.
• Shane and Mara from The Shield run away to get married, probably because they didn't have anyone to invite anyway.

Video Games

• This can be invoked in The Sims 3, if the player chooses "Have Private Wedding".

Visual Novels

• Amnesia: Memories' fandisc Amnesia LATER has Ikki and the heroine choose to get married in a private wedding, with just the two of them exchanging their vows at night. No elopement necessary, as her father had long since agreed to their relationship, and they were merely waiting for her to finish university.
• Tomoya and Nagisa elope in CLANNAD ~After Story~ because they're too poor to afford a "proper" wedding. Tomoya says they do plan to have a wedding ceremony once they've saved up some.

Webcomic

• In Tina's Story, Tina and Ray (already engaged) decide to go ahead and get married while on a island vacation.
• Towards the end of Dominic Deegan, Dominic and Luna were beginning to wonder their own wedding should be like after taking care of all the problems dealing with the Big Bad. They decide their love for each other is more important than fretting over formalities and take a quiet moment to reaffirm that. Their priestess friend Jayden takes the time to formally marry the two to spare them the stress of thinking about it with everything going on. The two do have the courtesy to make sure everyone knows about it, then have a proper wedding party at the end of the comic.

Real Life

• In the United States, seven states^note California, Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Nevada, and Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia offer self-solemnizing or self-uniting marriage licenses upon request. This allows couples to conduct their own wedding ceremony without needing a judge or minister to officiate, though most states will still require an adult witness or two. In Pennsylvania this is also known as a "Quaker wedding" since the practice originated with the Quaker Church, which doesn't believe in ordained clergy. Some states require couples to be members of a clergy-less religious sect to hold such a wedding, while others don't. DC and Colorado are the most permissive in this regard, as they don't require religious affiliation or witnesses, meaning the entire wedding can just be the couple saying their vows to each other alone. It doesn't get more private than that.

---