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Gretna Green is a village in the south of Scotland famous for runaway weddings.
Gretna's famous "runaway marriages" is thought to have started in 1754 when Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act was effective in England. The Act stated that if a parent of a minor (i.e., a person under the age of 21) objected, they could stop the marriage going ahead. The Act tightened up the requirements for marrying in England and Wales but not in Scotland, where it was possible for boys to marry at 14 and girls at 12 with or without parental consent (see Marriage in Scotland). Only in the 1770s, with the construction of a toll road passing through the obscure village of Graitney, that Gretna Green became the first easily reachable village over the Scottish border.