“They pretty much get picked up as soon as we release them,” Santa Barbara County Clerk Melinda Greene told the Los Angeles Times, talking about wedding slots at the county courthouse. “We have people from all over the world.”
Courthouse appointments across California have been filling months ahead, though some couples still grab last-minute openings. The Times described elopement as having turned from “a breezy wedding alternative into a formal contact sport.” Asha Marshall of So Fetch Photography said it books so fast that you have to be online at the exact time of day you want. “A lot of my brides get stressed out,” she said.
Where couples are going
Social media is pushing part of the trend, as couples copy celebrities and choose the same venues. Santa Barbara’s Spanish Moorish revival courthouse is where Kamala Harris married Doug Emhoff and Kourtney Kardashian married Travis Barker. “We see dozens a day, starting at 8 o’clock in the morning,” county supervisor Roy Lee said.
San Francisco City Hall, where Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio married in 1954, is a top spot too. It hosts some 7,000 weddings a year, according to the Times.
Gen Z reaches marrying age
The timing is not an accident. The oldest members of Gen Z are reaching 28, the average marrying age, according to the wedding-planning company Zola, and the generation has become a main driver of the industry.
Zola’s 2026 trends report surveyed more than 11,500 couples marrying this year. It found the average wedding still costs $36,000, with guest counts steady at around 145. Eighty-five percent of couples said their wedding would be worth every penny. Bank of America said in June that wedding-related spending was up 8.5% year over year so far in 2026.
So the courthouse crowd is one slice of the market, not all of it. Photographers who work with these couples say the appeal is a short list of guests, little planning and a lower bill.
Sources
- Courthouse weddings are booming as many couples skip pricey traditional ceremonies
- The Ultimate Courthouse Wedding Guide | microWED collective
