Star Crossed Lovers Elope at Nelson’s Ghost Town
Prepare to see stars! If you are hoping to make a bold fashion statement on your wedding day, Megan will inspire you! Inspired by the moon and the stars, Megan’s starstruck gown screamed “celebration” as she walked down the aisle to meet her forever. To make it more special the moon reflected brightly in the daylight for their wedding day. It was the perfect day.
Whether your love story is of star crossed lovers or written in the stars, this celestial wedding will have you wanting to shoot for the stars and begin your mystical day.
THE PROPOSAL:
While Halloween is my favorite holiday, I am an absolute sucker for all things twinkle lights around Christmas. Ryan took me out on Dec 30, 2021, for one last ride around our state to check out all of the Christmas lights we hadn’t had a chance to see yet before they all started to come down after the new year. He took me to our favorite little spot, Hubbard Park in Meriden, CT and we walked around the whole park looking at all the lit-up animals, snowflakes, and other little scenes they do there. He took me down by the little gazebo they have by the waterfall and pointed at something over my shoulder and when I turned back around he was down on one knee asking me to marry him. It was absolutely magical, beautiful, and perfect, especially after a rough year when I had lost my mom a couple of months prior. It was a great way to end our year on a happy note.
THE VISION:
As I mentioned before Halloween is my favorite holiday, and I love everything witchy/spooky/magical. I knew I didn’t want a “traditional” gown or wedding. Ryan and I are both a little bit more on the alternative side, so we knew we wanted something catered more to us rather than the traditional wedding vision a lot of people had. Originally I was looking for a black dress but fell in absolute love with my grey and silver celestial dress once I saw it online and after I saw that one I couldn’t find anything else that compared. We decided to keep Ryan in all black to tie the dark aesthetic in alongside my dress. For floral arrangements I sent all the inspo I found over to Elopement Las Vegas and their florist knocked it out of the park with the dark and moody aesthetic that I wanted.
THE PLANNING PROCESS:
When we were originally planning the wedding we had started to look at more traditional venues here in Connecticut, but honestly the extremely high price tags that even came with small bare bones wedding ideas really started to give me a bit of anxiety. And if I wanted the aesthetic that I wanted with the photographer styles I wanted it was really going to end up costing a small fortune and we would rather save that money to buy a bigger house someday for our family. While we were starting to plan the wedding, there was also this all-day emo/hardcore concert being announced in Las Vegas called the When We Were Young Festival. We had tried to get tickets for the original first weekend they announced but it sold out in seconds and we never even got into the queue. That week we began wedding planning; they had announced a third and final date for the festival and a presale date. Ryan and I at first joked around with the idea of eloping out in Vegas if we got tickets, but after all the stress of planning a traditional wedding hit us, Ryan looked at me and said hey, let’s let this decide things for us, if somehow we get through and get 2 tickets to this shows last date we will go out there and elope, if we can’t get tickets to the show then we will take it as a sign to save up for a year and plan a larger scale wedding here in CT but we will wait for 2023 so we have time to plan and save. I said it’s a deal, and somehow on the presale date, after getting stuck in a queue for 30 minutes being convinced that there’s no way we’re getting tickets, I got through and was able to put 2 tickets in my cart. I texted Ryan immediately as he was trying to get through on his phone at work and I asked him are we doing this? and he just said YES LETS DO IT. So we bought the tickets and then realized the concert was on October 29th, and that meant we could actually elope on Halloween a couple of days later which made me so excited. I immediately started googling how to elope in Las Vegas and that’s where I stumbled upon Elopement Las Vegas and contacted them about their process and rates and all of that. I knew I didn’t want to have to “plan” a ton, I knew what look I wanted, I saw some of the photographers they worked with and loved the style they had, and I wanted to be able to make this elopement as easy as possible while still getting the photos and video that I can look at for the rest of our lives and be happy with. They were so easy and amazing to work with, I had inquired if it was possible to have Feel & Focus Photography as our photographer because I immediately fell in love with her style, and they said it was kind of up to the schedule and all that which I totally understood. Then a few weeks later they confirmed they were able to get her for us and I was even more excited. Once I sent over pictures of my dress, flower inspo, and all that they really took care of putting it all together and helped me pick out the perfect spot for my ideal look and aesthetic and we settled on Nelson Ghost Town for our Halloween elopement and it was absolutely perfect.
YOUR OUTFITS AND ACCESSORIES
For Ryan’s outfit I really just wanted him in a nice tailored black suit, with all-black accessories. We just went to our closest Men’s Warehouse and got him all set up there, they took care of the sizing and tailoring and he was all set to go. For his ring he chose a ring from the company Thorum called the Direwolf which is a beautiful black damascus steel ring with a little gold band embedded into it. He wanted a black ring but the little gold bit also tied it into mine.
For my dress, like I mentioned before, I started out looking at black dresses of all kinds, trying to find something dark, moody and magical. But then I randomly came across this beautiful grey/silver celestial dress with silver and gold stars on etsy. It was the Nova Star Wedding Dress from Flora and Lane. I was so nervous to buy a dress online, never seen in person, but after creeping on their reviews, talking with them in their DMs on Etsy and just drooling over the photos and videos they had of the dress I decided to pull the trigger. They helped me pick out the size that matched closest to my measurements and I only needed minor adjustments once it came in, it just about fit perfectly right out of the box. For my shoes Ryan had gotten me these beautiful Dr. Marten’s combat boots for my birthday in July so I had time to break them in for our wedding day. They were the 1490 Vonda Floral Leather Mid Calf Boot (I don’t see them on their site anymore unfortunately), with beautiful pink roses embroidered on them, little gold studs, and some black embroidered little moths and other details. And they were PERFECT for running around in the desert on our wedding day! All of my accessories were gold, Ryan had gotten me a beautiful gold engagement ring and wedding ring set that the bands look like little branches, I had both of my grandmother’s engagement ring diamonds combined into a necklace pendant for me to wear, and a few months before the wedding I went and got all my earrings and nose rings upgraded to be gold to match everything. I also wore my nana’s gold bracelet and a small gold ring with a star sapphire that was my moms. My hair and makeup was done by Luci from Amelia C Hair and Makeup and she did such an amazing job bringing my ideas to life from my little gold star glitter for my eyes to my golden star and moon accessories I had gotten off amazon for my hair.
I also wanted little custom things for our wedding as well, and got us a personalized halloween themed wedding cake topper, ring box and vow books (I got these all off of Etsy). We still wanted little elements of what a lot of traditional weddings have incorporated in our ceremony even though it was just the two of us and these little bits really helped tie it all together and also gave us little keepsakes from our elopement to keep forever.
Ryan’s Ring: https://www.thorum.com/products/black-damascus-and-rose-gold?_pos=1&_psq=dire&_ss=e&_v=1.0
Dress: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1176668725/nova-star-wedding-dress-gray-tulle?click_key=27c4914ce02bed8e2b0c470cdf4d021f520eb033%3A1176668725&click_sum=5f8ce2c5&ref=shop_home_active_20&frs=1&crt=1
Cake Topper: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1225980274/mr-mrs-halloween-cake-topper-bat-wreath
Vow Books: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1039670769/wedding-vow-books-his-and-her-vow-books
MEMORABLE MOMENTS
Honestly the whole ceremony and photo/video shoot was absolutely amazing. Our ceremony was exactly what we wanted, intimate with just the two of us together, filled with laughs and smiles, and quick and easy. Dancing around with our little emo playlist playing, and afterwards running all around Nelson Ghost Town with Feel & Focus Photography and P Zanardi Films taking fun photos and just dorking out and being ourselves and happy with each other was amazing. Not to mention the crescent moon peeking out right at the end for some of our favorite shots. It was honestly just an amazing and fun day, and it was absolutely perfect and everything we wanted.
ADVICE FOR OTHER COUPLES
Take every moment you have out there to enjoy that time. Trust in the planners they really do go and take all your ideas and dreams into consideration planning everything for you and they make it absolutely perfect. These few hours out there together are what you will have to remember your wedding by so just really relish in the moment of you getting married and being with your favorite person. Have fun with each other and the photographers and the videographers because it really shows in the final products that you get in the end and you have these amazing moments captured forever. Just don’t stress, have fun, eat your delicious cake and love each other. It’s going to be a perfect day.
VENDORS
Officiant :Judy Irving
Photographer: Feel and Focus Photography
Florist: Amy Wong Events
Video: P Zanardi Films
Permit and Coordination: Desert Elopement Las Vegas
