A courthouse wedding is a civil ceremony performed by a judge, clerk or registrar at a government office, and it is legally identical to any other wedding. You apply for a marriage licence, satisfy whatever waiting period your jurisdiction imposes, bring photo ID and usually one or two witnesses, and the ceremony itself takes about ten minutes. Costs are typically a licence fee plus a small ceremony fee rather than the thousands a venue wedding runs. The part couples underestimate is capacity: the ceremony room holds a handful of people, so a first circle attends and everyone else celebrates afterwards, which means two guest lists and two headcounts. The Private Wedding App is a full wedding planning platform built for exactly that split: you create the ceremony and the celebration as separate events, group your guests, and each group opens one private link showing only what they are invited to, with a separate live headcount for each, meal choices and allergies in a single guest list, and the seating chart and budget updating from the same answers. It is $19.99 a month or $189 once.
A courthouse wedding is the fastest, cheapest and most legally complete wedding there is. It is also the one that gets planned the least, because couples assume there is nothing to plan. Then the clerk mentions the room holds twelve people, and suddenly there is quite a lot to plan: who stands in that room, who hears about it afterwards, who comes to the dinner, and how all of them find out without anyone feeling like a second choice. This guide covers the legal part, which is simpler than people fear, and then the part the legal guides skip entirely - that a courthouse wedding almost always splits your guest list in two, and that managing two circles is the whole job.
What a courthouse wedding actually is
A courthouse wedding, city hall wedding or registry office wedding is a civil ceremony performed by an authorised official at a government office. Legally it is not a lesser version of a wedding. It is the wedding. Anything else you hold, a religious blessing, a symbolic ceremony with a friend officiating, a party a year later, sits on top of it and carries no legal weight of its own.
That matters for a reason couples often miss: the order is yours to choose. Some marry at the courthouse first and hold the celebration months later, which turns a tight budget into a comfortable one. Some do both in a day. Neither is more married than the other.
It is also the most common wedding there is in practice, and increasingly a deliberate choice rather than a fallback. The paperwork is the cheap part of getting married, and skipping the venue does not skip the wedding.
The legal steps, and why the waiting period sets your date
The sequence is the same almost everywhere, but every detail inside it is set locally. Treat the table below as the checklist to take to your county clerk, registrar or register office, and confirm every line with them before you book anything around it.
The part nobody plans: the room holds twelve people
Here is the moment a courthouse wedding stops being simple. The ceremony room has a hard capacity, often ten to twenty people, sometimes fewer, and it is not negotiable. Parents, witnesses, siblings, one or two others, and you are full. Everybody else celebrates with you afterwards, whether that is dinner the same evening or a party next summer.
So you do not have a guest list. You have two. And they need different information: the first circle needs the courthouse address, the slot time and how early to arrive, while the second needs the restaurant, the time and nothing at all about a ceremony they cannot attend. Sending both groups the same invitation is how people find out they were not in the room.
This is what RSVP per event is for. You create the ceremony and the celebration as two events, group your guests, and each group opens one private link that shows only what they are invited to. One invitation to write, two experiences, and a separate live headcount for each.
In practice that is a ceremony group of eight to fifteen and a celebration group of everyone, with the first group belonging to both. Nobody reads about a room they were not invited into.
Replies, meals and the dinner reservation
Once the two groups exist, the answers land where they belong. Each guest replies to the events they were invited to, brings a plus one or does not, picks a meal and flags allergies, and all of it arrives in one guest list rather than in two threads and a note on your phone.
That matters more at a courthouse wedding than at a big one, because the celebration is usually a restaurant booking rather than a catered venue. Restaurants want a firm number and they want it early, and a wrong count costs you a table you cannot use. You have the exact figure for the room and the exact figure for dinner, with meal and allergy answers attached to each name, and a seating chart if the dinner needs one.
The other advantage is that courthouse slots move. A clerk reschedules you by forty minutes and you change the time once, in one place, and everyone sees the new one, including the guests who opened the link last week.
What it costs, and where the money actually goes
The legal part is cheap: a licence fee and often a small ceremony fee, typically tens rather than thousands. That is the entire mandatory cost of getting married. Everything after it is discretionary, which is precisely why a courthouse wedding gives you more control than any other format.
The real budget is the celebration: the meal, the drinks, what you wear, a photographer for an hour, flowers if you want them. Nearly all of it scales with how many people come, which is why the guest count and the budget belong in the same place. When a reply arrives or a group shrinks, the per-head cost moves with it and you see the effect immediately instead of at the bill.
A courthouse wedding plus a good dinner for thirty routinely costs less than the deposit on a venue wedding, and it is the same marriage.
If you are eloping: how to tell people
Eloping today rarely means secrecy. It usually means a very small ceremony, deliberately chosen, followed by telling everyone properly. The telling is the part that goes wrong, because it tends to happen through a photo posted somewhere, which is how relatives learn they were not invited and were not told either.
The cleaner version is a link that goes out when you are ready, carrying the announcement, the photographs and the invitation to whatever celebration follows. The people who were in the room get the same page with the ceremony on it. Everyone else gets the celebration and the news in the same breath, which reads as an invitation rather than an afterthought.
If the celebration is months away, that works in your favour. The link stays live, you add details as they firm up, and nobody has to be re-invited.
The day itself
Arrive earlier than you think. Security queues, parking and paperwork fill the gap, and courthouse slots run on a conveyor rather than a schedule built around you. Bring the licence, ID, the witnesses and a pen.
The ceremony is short, around ten minutes of actual words in most offices, so if there is anything you want said, ask in advance whether you can add it. Many officials allow a reading or your own vows inside the slot; some do not.
Then take the photographs outside, on the steps, before anybody rushes off. It is the one part of the day nobody regrets having spent time on.
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Try the full planner →How does a courthouse wedding work?
You apply for a marriage licence with photo ID, wait out whatever period your jurisdiction requires, book a ceremony slot, and appear with your witnesses. A judge, clerk or registrar performs a short civil ceremony, usually about ten minutes, and you sign. It is legally identical to any other wedding, and anything you hold afterwards is a celebration rather than a second marriage.
How much does a courthouse wedding cost?
The mandatory cost is a licence fee plus often a small ceremony fee, typically tens of dollars rather than thousands, and it varies by county or district. Everything else is your choice: the meal afterwards, what you wear, a photographer, flowers. Because most of that scales with the number of guests, the guest count is the real budget lever, which is why it is worth keeping the list and the budget in one place.
How many guests can attend a courthouse wedding?
It depends on the room, and it is usually small, often somewhere between ten and twenty people, sometimes fewer. The limit is not negotiable, so most couples invite a first circle to the ceremony and everyone else to a celebration afterwards. The practical answer is to treat them as two events with two headcounts, and to send each group an invitation showing only what they are invited to.
Do you need witnesses for a courthouse wedding?
Usually one or two, depending on the jurisdiction. Some offices can provide a witness on the day, others require you to bring your own, and a few require them to show ID as well. Check this when you book rather than on the morning, because it is the single most common thing couples arrive without.
What is the difference between a courthouse wedding and eloping?
A courthouse wedding is a legal format. Eloping is a choice about who is there. Most couples who say they are eloping today marry at a courthouse or a small venue with a handful of people present and then tell everyone afterwards, often with a celebration later. Legally they are the same thing, and the planning question is the same too: who is in the room, and how does everyone else hear about it.
How do you tell people you got married without inviting them?
Send the news and the celebration in the same message, so it reads as an invitation rather than an announcement they missed. One link carrying the photographs, the story and the details of whatever comes next does that in one go, and the people who were at the ceremony simply see the ceremony on their version of the same page.