Elopements
The Elopement Stories
the beginning of everythingAn elopement is not a smaller wedding. It is a different day with a different rhythm, and it is usually the better photograph.
There is no timeline built around two hundred people. There is a drive, a place, a few words, and whoever you decided to bring. Sometimes that is nobody. The whole thing can be over in twenty minutes and still be the longest day of your life.
What I do beforehand matters more here than at a wedding. Where the sun sits at the hour you are standing there. Whether the trailhead has parking in October. Which agency issues the permit, and how far ahead it has to be filed. Getting that right is most of the work, and it happens weeks before anyone picks up a camera.
California makes this easy in one way and difficult in another. The state will marry you almost anywhere. The land you want to stand on usually has an owner with rules about it.
Love letters
VStart with how to elope in California, then the places: Yosemite, Lake Tahoe, and Napa and Sonoma. Public land usually needs a permit, and that page has the current rules.
