There’s no question that at least once during the wedding planning process, every man (and many women) start to think about eloping. Can’t believe your parents want to invite 200 of their “closest” friends? Shocked at the variety of bills pouring in for every little thing? Hit the road and save some cash.

The thought certainly crossed my mind more than once. My now-wife and I went to Vegas a couple of times while we were engaged, and I only half-jokingly suggested that we elope while we were there. It would have saved a lot of money, and that’s money that can be spent on other things like season tickets to the Diamondbacks or, uh, something a little more female-friendly. Sounds great.

So if you decide you want to elope, chances are it’s more of a spur-of-the-moment thing. Before you change your mind, you decide to hop a flight to Vegas or Hawai’i and get it over with, right? Well, if you’re going to do that, then you’ll want some tips on how to keep the cost down.

You could always drive, of course, but that doesn’t exactly create the fun, cool memories that last a lifetime. You want to fly, but last minute airfare can be pretty expensive, and that sucks. Yes, it’ll still cost you less than all those flowers you were going to buy for your traditional wedding, but still, there’s no reason to waste any money.

The first thing you should do is look for last minute deals. American, for example, has NetSAAver fares that come out midweek for last minute weekend trips. Other airlines, like Delta, do this as well. It’s a great way for the airlines to sell off some of their excess inventory at the last minute. Then again, it might be tougher to get a flight to Vegas than, say, Reno.

But unless you’re going in and coming right back, you also need a place to stay. There are some great deals around right now, but how do you find them? Well, there certainly are a million places to look, but one that you might want to bookmark is Dealbase. Dealbase shows deals from a variety of sources and tries to display them in terms so that they can be compared to each other easily.

Find your deals this way and then you’ll have plenty of cash leftover to blow on the deluxe package at the chapel.

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