SHORTLY AFTER her engagement last year, Letechia Shevik was overwhelmed by a feeling familiar to many brides-to-be.
Terror.
"I just couldn't handle it," said Shevik, who is 29, lives near Chicago in Buffalo Grove, Ill., and works as an administrative assistant at Clairol Inc. "All that stress, the planning, the walking up the aisle, turning around and seeing everyone looking at me.
"People I know who got married usually say that if they could do it over again, they would have eloped. So, that's what we did."
To many Americans, the notion of eloping may sound anachronistic if not mythical, a vestige of a romantic time when impetuous Romeos climbed ladders to bedroom windows and stealthily swept away their beloveds for impromptu private weddings, sometimes in another state.
Never mind that the deed was probably inspired by a premature pregnancy, parental disapproval or an under-age bride.
Nowadays, thanks to a rising number of older brides and grooms, a spate of second marriages, a steady stream of immigration-related "green card" weddings and the new 1990s cheap-is-chic ethos, elopements of one sort or another are almost as common as the traditional ceremonies in churches and banquet halls.
Indeed, for many contemporary couples, one of the first lines they might hear at their wedding service would come not from a minister ("Dearly beloved, we are gathered here . . . ") but from a city clerk ("Next in line, please. Hablas Ingles?")
Even Martha Stewart, the high priestess of home entertaining whose many lifestyle bibles include "Weddings," has noticed the trend away from giving a $50,000 celebration, which is how much an average ceremony and reception for 200 costs in Manhattan.
"Instead of paying runaway prices," she said, "people are running away."
Of course nuptial purists may quibble about the word "elopement," which is derived from the word "lope," as in loping away. They would never use the word for small civil ceremonies or jaunts to exotic locales that are designed merely to merge the wedding into the honeymoon. To elope, they argue, the service must be shrouded in secrecy and scandal. "I can't recall the last time I heard someone say 'elope,' " said Cele Lalli, the editor in chief of Modern Bride magazine.
Statistics on the subject are as elusive as the perfect spouse. Figures from the National Center for Health Statistics in Hyattsviile, however, suggest that a growing number of couples are abandoning formal weddings in favor of what, loosely speaking, would be considered an elopement.
