from Verna’s Customs of Calatini

Elopements, or running away to wed secretly, are considered both reckless and scandalous because they often occur without family consent. Eloping couples are both disobedient and disloyal to the duty they owe their families, as well as they might be alone together without chaperones for multiple days. Most assume a couple eloped because they anticipated their marriage vows with the bride falling pregnant. Elopements could cause strife in the bride’s and groom’s families, possibly even leading to the disinheriting of the disobedient couple. Yet when the newlyweds return, many families suppress gossip about their elopement and feign approval to prevent such a scandal from tainting the rest of the family.

For couples where both partners are twenty, Calatini’s age of majority, or older, performing an elopement is simple. They can wed whomever they wish without family approval, although they risk family strife and being disinherited. All they must do is find a priest willing to marry them. They can even use that priest and one other as their witnesses to reduce possible gossip about their elopement.

However, for couples where one or both partners are under twenty, elopements are more complicated. Only the Sisters of the Heart perform underage elopements*, so underage couples intending to elope must travel to one of their abbeys. In Calatini, there are three: one in the north at the border of Wildewall, Childes, and Linwick; one in the south at the heart of Oakmoor; and the oldest to the west at Hazeen Isle. (Underage couples in Ormas most commonly elope to Hazeen Isle because ’tis the closest, only two days by boat.) Once at one of those abbeys, the underage couple must prove to the priestesses that they should be permitted to marry. Not every couple is approved, although those where the bride is pregnant nearly always are.

The wedding ceremony for elopements is the same as the usual ones in Calatini, except they are often the simplest version with the fewest witnesses and guests. Bloodbindings are rare between eloping couples, particularly underage ones, as priests encourage them to wait to bind their life forces together forever.

(* The Sisters of the Heart perform underage elopements because of their founding priestess’s history. Her family prevented her from wedding her childhood love when they were eighteen, and he died at sea soon thereafter while attempting to earn a fortune that would convince her family to approve their marriage. The grieving girl entered the priesthood, and she did find comfort in serving the Goddess, although she never forgot her lost love. She created the Sisters of the Heart on Hazeen Isle in 518 AF, not long after she was ordained.)