Eloping

My boyfriend and I are *getting married on December 1, 2011* – 16 days away! I guess “eloping” is the right word, but it sounds so irresponsible. It is going to be a total secret from everyone we know in real life – forever (or that is the hope anyway). We have only been together since March/11 but it has been simply perfect. He has helped me so much in my recovery. I love him with my whole heart and for once in my life I can imagine a future for myself that does not involve bouncing in and out of the hospital. I can imagine possibilities for hope and happiness in years to come. The way we met was purely coincidental. He lives in Washington and I live in Canada. One day in March (a couple weeks after being discharged from IP) I headed south for a day-trip and went to the bank to apply for a credit card. He helped me with my application and we talked for over an hour. I definitely was attracted to him but brushed it off and figured I would never see him again. However, in the days afterwards I couldn’t stop thinking about him. He called me 2 weeks later and came up to Canada to visit me that same weekend. He says that the day we met he kept feeling that he had to call – that he couldn’t let me get away and that I could be “the one”. Sometimes you just know right away. We have seen each other every weekend since then, gone on a trip to New York and now we are getting married. I now wholeheartedly believe that you really do find love when you are least looking for it. Despite being excited, we are trying to view this as simply paperwork in a larger process. I wonder if I will feel married… The reason for this crazy plan is so that we can get the visa process started sooner for me to move to the USA. We definitely want to have a “real” wedding but just don’t have time to plan one properly right now, so the plan is to have our real wedding exactly a year from now on December 1, 2012 in order to keep the same anniversary date. We don’t want any judgement from others and we don’t want people to feel that our wedding next year is “fake” or that we are just putting on a show since we would already be married. His parents would be supportive if we told them but they would insist on being there and celebrating it would blow things out of proportion and start taking on more significance than we want it to at this point. My parents would flat out freak out. They are Christian and traditional and no matter what I say they would never understand our reasons. They would forever judge our relationship negatively and probably refuse to attend the wedding a year later. We’re doing everything backwards: buying wedding rings before engagement ring, getting married before the wedding, he is going to ask for my parents’ blessing and propose to me after we are already married. On the weekend we went engagement ring shopping and BOUGHT our wedding rings. I love them: simple matching white gold bands. Even though we can’t wear the rings yet, we still want to exchange them at the civil ceremony, then keep them away for a year, only wearing them maybe on vacation or when we are sure we won’t run into anyone we know.