Civil weddings

I'm not sure what you mean by a civil wedding. My understanding of a civil ceremony is that it just means a non-religious ceremony. My husband and I had a non-religious ceremony, but it was still a big wedding. If you mean, at a courthouse with really no one around that's different than a civil ceremony or at least what I think of as a civil ceremony.

I'll be having a civil ceremony with my dad officiating, but not at a courthouse. FH and I considered it briefly, though. Some of the buildings are really beautiful!

By civil, you mean nonreligious. That is the general definition outside of the US because it is not a term used to describe US weddings due to different laws and customs. For example, in Europe, if you don't marry in the church, you have a civil nonreligious wedding in a designated building. There isn't any in between due to their laws.
In that case, yes we are because we are not religious.
If you mean courthouse, which is something else entirely, then no we will not be doing that style.

Do you mean civil wedding or courthouse wedding?

View Quoted Comment Yes ma'am sorry for the confusion.

View Quoted Comment Hi Hanna, sorry for the confusion. Ppl are quick to point out mistakes on here. I meant both.

If I hadn’t had my heart set on a small destination wedding, I definitely would have considered the option of a courthouse wedding or elopement. I think they can be really sweet and intimate. Our photographer has actually shot a few of these recently. I will include the links below. She really shows that elopements/courthouse weddings can still be beautiful.


https://juliamaruyamaphotography.com/blog/2019/1/27/jacob-amp-hailey-winter-courthouse-chicago-elopement
https://juliamaruyamaphotography.com/blog/2019/12/22/alfred-caldwell-lily-pool-intimate-ceremony-downtown-chicago-mark-amp-bri

(I loooooooove the outdoor pictures of the first couple, after the ceremony pics)

View Quoted Comment Hi Chrysta! Thanks for sharing and providing the link.

View Quoted Comment Ikr! I love that picture too!! Many of the corthouse pics I see on google are stunning.

My spouse and I are not religious, so the only kind of wedding we ever considered was a civil one. And since we are also frugal and wanted something simple and small, getting married at the courthouse with lunch at a nearby restaurant was the perfect answer for us.

I've been to lots of civil weddings that were huge, fancy affairs though.

View Quoted Comment When is your wedding date? Or did it already happen?

I wanted to do a small wedding right before a cruise & use the cruise as our honeymoon. FH didn’t want that, he wanted the whole thing & I’m secretly glad he does. I’ve been married before but have never had a wedding with all the trimmings. We did agree to keep it small & no kids. Our guest list is around 80 which is small for us considering if we invited all family & friends it would have been around 250+.
I’ve done a civil/courthouse wedding & honestly I didn’t like it.