Eloping now, and having a wedding next year

My SIL is in Virginia and doing a microwedding in her backyard. They found an officiant to do it and that's really it. Immediate family only. I don't think they're doing much of anything decoration wise or having a photographer or anything. The big celebration will be next year.

Hi, I’m in Virginia and we are doing the same thing. There should be a list you can find on the gov website of people you can call who are recognized by the court to sign a marriage license. We found someone who can sign it for us that morning, but then we are having our ceremony in a public park nearby with just our parents and our friend who is performing the ceremony.

My mom lives in NOVA. If you're close to washington dc, they recognize self officiating marriages where you don't need an officiant.

You could go on thumbtack and find an officiant as well.

So, I tried to find out how easy it is to be temporarily ordained in Virginia. It is possible, but it's kind of a process and it goes by county. But if you Google the phrase, "one time civil celebrant authorization Virginia," you can probably find the right information for your county, and then you can just be married by someone you know. At least in the first county I read about, you have to give them $500, but they give it back, so the total fee for this is $56.
For the celebration, you can have something as basic or extravagant as you want. We're doing something that feels more like a typical wedding without going completely over the top, and I've seen a few people on here say that they're just doing a quick cake and punch reception after their small ceremony this year. Do you have any idea of what kind of micro-wedding reception you'd want? Like, are there any elements that are really important to you?

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Awesome! Thanks for the tip, I'll look today!

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Oh yeah I always forget about Thumbtack lol.

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Interesting. Unfortunately we live in Chester (south of Richmond), and we would probably be doing this in the somewhere between Roanoke and Charlottesville to make it easier for our parents.

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I've heard about stuff like that from a co-worker, but I couldn't find any info on it to save my life (possibly because gov websites are bloated and unorganized). But really for right now we just want someone to do some kind of small ceremony (more for our parents), and then sign the piece of paper.

View Quoted Comment Yeah, it was much harder to find this information for VA than it was for MA, where I live. This is the first one I found that wasn't in NOVA here's the form: https://www.lynchburgva.gov/sites/default/files/colfiles/circuit_court/documents/marriage%20celebrant.pdf

Here's the website it came from:
https://www.lynchburgva.gov/miscellaneous
Different counties/cities seem to have different policies, but it would definitely be possible to get married this way if you want to.

My fiancé and I also decided to reschedule our wedding for next year. We're from NOVA. Luckily all our vendors agreed to move the date without extra cost. But now we thought about eloping on our original wedding date which is 10/10/2020 and just do a renewal next year (10/10/2021) at our venue. We are pondering on doing it somewhere in Shenandoah. I've always wanted to be married atop a mountain. But I heard there's a special license that needs to be acquired if you're getting married there especially in October.

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Huh, I've never heard of that! And I wonder why especially in Oct? I'm originally from Roanoke, and Oct is about when the leaves normally start changing so it may have something to do with that and tourism.

View Quoted Comment It seems October is a busy month especially since it’s foliage season. I looked into it just now and it says as long as it’s less than 15 ppl and you would’t set up anything then you won’t need a permit (that cost $150 processing fee).