I must get at least 3- 5 emails a week from couples who want to elope in Paris. Since I find myself answering a lot of the same questions week after week, I decided to compile The American Wedding Planner in Paris’ Top Five Pointers for Planning an Elopement in Paris.

Rule #3: You can not get married on top of the Eiffel Tower
Let me just say that once again for the girls at the back: You Can NOT get married on top of the Eiffel Tower. The Eiffel Tower is a national monument which occasionally rents the top out for corporate functions, but not to private individuals. If you want to host your wedding at the Eiffel Tower, you’ll be encouraged to rent rooms at one of the two restaurants in the tower. BTW, you also can’t get married at Notre Dame Cathedral or at Sacre Coeur, unless you have some pretty strong pull in some VERY high places in France. For starters, in order to have a church wedding at all in France, you will first need to have a civil wedding here. That comes with a whole slew of rules and regulations, which is why most foreigners who come to Paris to get married choose to have a religious blessing or a symbolic ceremony instead. With symbolic ceremonies, you have a lot more flexibility- so while you still can’t get married on top of the Eiffel Tower, you can have a very simple symbolic ceremony in front of it.