{"id":11114,"date":"2026-08-28T18:14:22","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T18:14:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/strongermarriages\/?p=11114"},"modified":"2026-08-28T18:14:22","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T18:14:22","slug":"kelly-ripa-and-mark-consuelos-share-controversial-wedding-advice-30-years-after-eloping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/strongermarriages\/2026\/08\/kelly-ripa-and-mark-consuelos-share-controversial-wedding-advice-30-years-after-eloping.html","title":{"rendered":"Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos Share Controversial Wedding Advice 30 Years After Eloping"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_11117\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-11117\" style=\"width: 1200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11117\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/413\/2026\/08\/Ripa-Consuelos_credit-DFree-Shutterstock.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-11117\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">DFree \/ Shutterstock.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos have been married for 30 years, but when it comes to planning an elaborate wedding, they have some surprisingly blunt advice: Don\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p>The longtime couple, who eloped in Las Vegas in 1996, weighed in on the growing popularity of smaller, less expensive weddings during a prerecorded segment of \u201cLive with Kelly and Mark.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWeddings are having a micro trend in 2026,\u201d Ripa said, according to <em>PEOPLE<\/em>. \u201cTiny. A quirky cake. No big ceremony. Candles over flowers. Cost-effectiveness. This is the year of the cost-effective wedding.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For Ripa and Consuelos, the trend sounds familiar. Their own wedding cost just $179 \u2014 including airfare.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI loved our wedding,\u201d Ripa told her husband.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur wedding was great. $179, including airfare, thank you!\u201d she added.<\/p>\n<p>The couple met while starring together on \u201cAll My Children\u201d and eloped in Las Vegas in May 1996. Three decades and three children later, they still believe skipping the expensive ceremony was the right call.<\/p>\n<p>Ripa even joked that she and Consuelos should start a \u201cwedding service\u201d for couples considering lavish celebrations.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh, I like that,\u201d Consuelos replied. \u201cThey want a big wedding, and they come to us for counseling. We\u2019re like, \u2018Don\u2019t do it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ripa offered another reason for couples to reconsider spending heavily on a wedding.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou could buy a house, you could have equity in your future!\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Consuelos agreed, saying the expense of traditional weddings never made much sense to him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe money spent on these parties and flowers and rings and dresses, it just doesn\u2019t make sense to me,\u201d he said. \u201cIt never made sense to me, which is why we eloped.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ripa does have one small regret about their ultra-budget wedding.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m still sorry that we didn\u2019t spring for flowers because I always think my hands look awkward,\u201d she revealed in June. \u201cFlowers are extra. And somebody didn\u2019t want to spring for flowers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She joked that there\u2019s even one wedding photo she avoids showing because she didn\u2019t know what to do with her hands without a bouquet.<\/p>\n<p>Still, that appears to be about the extent of their regrets.<\/p>\n<p>Ripa and Consuelos celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary in May and share three adult children, Michael, Lola and Joaquin. The pair regularly joke about their relationship on their daytime show, but their unconventional wedding advice comes with three decades of experience behind it.<\/p>\n<p>For couples feeling pressure to create the perfect wedding day, Ripa and Consuelos make a compelling case for keeping things simple. Their $179 ceremony may not have been extravagant, but 30 years later, the marriage has lasted far longer than the celebration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos have been married for 30 years, but when it comes to planning an elaborate wedding, they have some surprisingly blunt advice: Don\u2019t. The longtime couple, who eloped in Las Vegas in 1996, weighed in on the growing popularity of smaller, less expensive weddings during a prerecorded segment of \u201cLive with&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":462,"featured_media":11117,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos Share Controversial Wedding Advice 30 Years After Eloping<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos reveal why they still stand by their $179 Las Vegas elopement after 30 years of marriage.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, 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