How to Plan a Last-Minute Elopement In Less Than 1 Month

So you put a ring on it—yay, congrats! Except now you’re being flooded with questions from well-meaning family & friends who are simply dying to know when the big day will be happening. What season are you aiming for? Location? Month? Week? Day? Time?! All of a sudden, you find yourselves wondering how long it takes to plan an elopement. . . because you’re just ready to do the damn thing.

In this guide, I’ll be answering that exact question (spoiler alert: the answer may surprise you!), as well as walking you through how to plan a last-minute elopement in 1 month or less. I know—who would’ve thought you could make a wedding day happen without a 2-year-long planning process full of stressful vendor meetings and endless Zoom calls with your overbearing parents who want to make it all about them? 😉

How Long Does it Take to Plan an Elopement?

Couples are always surprised when they ask me this question and I respond with, “Well, however long (or short) you want it to take!”

When you think of planning a typical, traditional wedding, you probably picture at least a year-long period of planning, if not more. With elopements, you might assume that timeframe can be condensed a good chunk, maybe down to 5-6 months instead of 12. But what if I told you that you could legit plan an entire elopement in under than a month?

In fact, I’ve had a HANDFUL of couples reach out to me wanting to elope in less than a month. Orrrrr even a. . . week. I even had a couple book me on a Friday, flew me out to their location the next day (Saturday), and exchanged their vows on the beach a few days later.

I know, I know; it might sound crazy and impossible! But I really want to encourage you that, if you’re in that same spot of wanting to plan a last-minute celebration, a beautiful elopement can absolutely be achieved in a super short amount of time. I honestly love the elopements that had a quick turnaround time—they’re really fun to see come together and the couples always have a total blast making it happen.

The One Thing You Need to Plan a Last-Minute Elopement

There’s one key thing you’re going to need in order to successfully plan a last-minute elopement: flexibility with your location.

The trickiest part about planning an elopement in less than a month is having enough time to get approved for a ceremony permit when getting married on national park, state park, or other publicly-owned land. Many national parks require a 30-day turnaround time for applying for permits, which makes it difficult if you’re wanting to plan a super last-minute ceremony at a park you love.

Sometimes, you may be able to get a permit faster if it’s the off-season, or if your desired park happens to have last-minute ceremony openings/enough staff to turn around your permit quickly, but I wouldn’t count on it. One of my past couples was able to get their Arches permit approved in a shorter amount of time than the typical 30 days because it was the off-season, though, so never say never!

One way to get around this obstacle is to get married somewhere that doesn’t need a permit, or on privately-owned land. I have a handful of locations in my repertoire that don’t require permits in advance, and you can sometimes find private properties on Airbnb that allow for small elopement ceremonies with express permission.

The big takeaway here is that if anything in your elopement plans aren’t flexible (especially your specific ceremony location), you may need to plan for more time to plan and get approval. And there’s nothing wrong with that—as your trusty elopement photographer, I’ll be there to help you figure out exactly how long you need to bring your dream day to life.

Trying to decide if a national park elopement is right for you? Here’s a list of the Top 12 US National Parks to Elope In.

What Could Our Last-Minute Elopement Look Like?

To help give you a better picture of what a last-minute elopement might look like, I’ve included a quick summary of what may be possible for elopements within different time frames below!

1 Week

Feeling antsy and ready to make this thing happen? I don’t blame you, it’s such an exciting time in your relationship! A week is a time crunch for sure, but it’s absolutely possible to plan a super simple elopement in less than 7 days if you’re committed to making it happen. Depending on your home county and country, marriage licenses can be obtained fairly quickly—you’ll just need to make sure you’re aware of any mandatory waiting period.

If you’re unable to get your marriage license quickly enough to have a ceremony in less than a week, you can absolutely still “elope” and just have a symbolic ceremony instead. A symbolic ceremony is simply a ceremony that doesn’t involve the legal stuff: instead of getting legally married during your ceremony, you complete your paperwork before or after your trip. You could easily plan an elopement day with a meaningful symbolic ceremony + vow exchange in a matter of days, then finish the legal part once you’re back home!

Let’s take one of my past couples, Chris + Kathleen, as an example, who eloped in the US Virgin Islands. They actually did all the legal paperwork at their hometown courthouse a few days before flying out to St. Croix, so their beach ceremony was a symbolic ceremony and required little to no effort besides the time spent writing their own vows. No officiant, no witnesses required, nada. They grabbed their flowers at a local market, stayed right on the beach, and eloped just the two of them! We spent the rest of our time together exploring the stunning tropics of the island, without a care in the world other than the fact that they were finally husband and wife, and it was a blast.

1 Month

I’ve had multiple couples elope with less than a month of planning, with actual, legal ceremonies. It’s very possible as long as you’re flexible with your location, aren’t inviting many guests (if any), and don’t need a ton of vendors. You can see photos from their special days below!

One month is a great time frame for a last-minute elopement since it’s very possible you can still book an activity or two, such as a sick helicopter tour or a cool sunset boat ride. Hikes are obviously an easy option, too, as they don’t require advance booking (unless it’s a trail inside of a public park where you’ll need a backcountry permit, reservation, or ceremony permit).

Typically, the most difficult part of planning an elopement this quickly is inviting guests, so you may be better off planning further out if you do have a guest list. But if you happen to have friends and fam who are available for such a quick turnaround, and you can find a ceremony location to fit your group, then by all means, invite away!

For both of my badass couples who eloped in less than a month, we were able to get permits more quickly than usual due to it being off-season in the parks, and voila—we planned their elopements in under 30 days! You may not be as lucky depending on the park + time of year, but it’s always worth a shot.

3 Months

If you don’t want to wait too long to tie the knot but you’d like a little bit of time to map things out, 3 months is a great length of time to do so. I would say that most of my couples fall in the 3-6 month range!

This gives you more time to invite guests, plan experiences, and still have a low-key, laid-back day. 3 months is usually a much better amount of time for, let’s say, guests who would need to request time off, or make travel plans to attend your elopement. It’s also just wayyy easier for most people to say yes to plans that are 3 months out versus 3 weeks, haha.

You won’t have your planning time super stretched out so much that you’re exhausted by the time your elopement arrives, but you’ll also realistically be able to plan activities, book excursions, and hire the vendors you need to make it all come to life.

See Dominique + Tom’s epic desert elopement below, planned in less than 3 months!

6-12 Months

Planning your elopement 6-12 months out is great if you want to plan a more intricate elopement with a specific ceremony location, more vendors, a larger guest list, and/or a longer timeline (such as an elopement that spans multiple days rather than just one).

You’ll have plenty of time to reach out to vendors you love, coordinate with family and friends you want to attend, plan out meals and hire a food provider, apply for a national park ceremony permit, and adjust your plan as needed. This amount of time gives you a lot more flexibility to book the excursions, accommodations, vendors, etc. you want rather than being limited to solely what’s available within a week or two.

Any longer than 12 months and you’ll simply have increasingly more time to plan as elaborate of an experience as you want!

Mollie + Tyler’s Acadia elopement was planned in under 6 months. See their full day here!

How to Plan an Elopement In 1 Month or Less

Now that you know that it’s possible to elope in such a short period of time, let’s talk about what you’ll need to do and when, if you want to elope in under a month!

4 weeks out:

✅ Apply for your ceremony permit: Do this ASAP so you have the best chance of actually getting a permit! We can chat about whether I think applying for a permit is even possible, depending on the time of year + your desired location, and whether we may want to choose an alternate location instead.

✅ Buy your elopement attire: You’ll want to have enough time to shop around and find outfits you love, which may require a little more work with so little time. Don’t skip out on secondhand shops or Facebook marketplace—you never know what you might find!

Need a little help picking your adventure elopement dress? This guide has got you covered.

✅ Book your flights + accommodations: Get your travel booked stat to make sure you have a way to get to your destination, and a place to sleep once you get there! Airbnb’s are always a great option for last-minute trips, often offering much lower nightly rates than hotels within the same time frame. If you want to camp during your elopement, check campsite reservations ahead of time to see if there are any available.

✅ Hire your vendors: Whatever vendors you’d like to have for your elopement, you’ll want to hire them as soon as you can—not only because you may have to go through a few options in order to find people that are available, but also because they’ll be able to support you in fast-tracking your planning + coordination.

✅ Invite your guests: If applicable, invite your guests as soon as possible. This way they have the most time to coordinate travel, accommodations, schedules, time off work, etc. to allow them to join you on the big day!

3 weeks out:

✅ Plan your activities: Obviously you can do this the week before, if you’d like, but you might have enough going on with your permits, booking travel, etc! Book any activities that require advance payments, reservations, or registration—such as helicopter tours, guided rock climbs, or Jeep adventures. Make sure you know what time you need to arrive, and that any guests who will be joining you know all the details + meetup spots.

✅ Plan your timeline: You and your photographer will build an itinerary for your day based on your ceremony location, activities, guests, travel dates, and more—you can learn allll about how to plan your perfect elopement timeline here.

2 weeks out:

✅ Get your marriage license: If you haven’t already, now is a great time to get your marriage license! Usually this is a pretty quick process, but depending on your county/state/country, it may take a few days to get finalized—or there may be a small mandatory waiting period.

1 week out:

✅ Check the weather: Now that the big day is almost here, make sure to check the weather forecast so you know what to expect, as well as the conditions of any trails or roads you may be taking to get to your destination! We can never fully predict what Mother Nature has in store, obviously, but best to be as prepared as we can be, right?

✅ Prep your attire: Once you have at least an estimate of what the weather might look like, it’s time to pack your attire—both your elopement outfits and any hiking/adventure gear you may need. If you’re hiking (no matter the time of day or season), layers are going to be your BFF as temperatures fluctuate throughout the day. I’ve got additional tips about choosing the right accessories + footwear here!

✅ Gather your details: Got any jewelry, knick-knacks, Polaroids, or other meaningful memorabilia that you want your photographer to document? Gather ‘em up before the day arrives so that you don’t miss anything important—bringing them in a big Ziploc or a box can be handy to keep it all together.

I know I said there was ONE key element to planning a successful last-minute elopement (location flexibility), but I forgot about the other one: having an experienced photographer by your side to help bring it all to life 😉

I’m Sarah, an elopement photographer who travels around the United States in search of the most epic elopement locations + the coolest couples in love. It’s my job (and my passion) to help you turn your elopement day into the adventure of a lifetime, whether it’s planned 6 days or 6 months in advance. Slide into my inbox here, and I’ll get my bags packed + ready to bring your dream day to life!

Wanna check out more elopement resources to help you plan your best adventure yet? Browse the Blog library, or peek at a few of my recent faves below:

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I’m Sarah, an elopement photographer traveling around the United States in my campervan.

I spend months at a time at each location I travel to, diving deep into the local elopement market in that area, so I can bring the important information to you from the comfort of your home.

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