How to Plan Your Perfect Courthouse Wedding Ceremony

If you have been following my COVID-19 wedding saga, you’ll already know that necessary quarantine/precautionary measures have made the wedding planning process about a thousand times harder for me and my partner, Ned.

We got engaged in September of 2018, and had our dream Seattle wedding planned for May 30, 2020. Once the pandemic hit, though, we quickly realized that we would need to change our plans. After multiple attempts to work things out (we cancelled our first date, moved the wedding to August, cancelled that when we realized the stay at home order for Washington wouldn’t be lifted in time, planned and had to cancel a courthouse wedding in Seattle), we were FINALLY able to work out a gorgeous courthouse wedding in rural South Bend, Washington. For anyone who is actively planning a wedding and/or is working around COVID legislation and restrictions affecting your nuptials, I have listed out the steps that I followrd to create our perfect courthouse ceremony in hopes that it will be some help!

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Choose a beautiful location, even if it involves a drive

For our ceremony, we chose to go to the Pacific County courthouse. This courthouse is about an hour away from where we live and there were definitely other courthouses closer, but they weren’t nearly as beautiful as the one that we chose. The grounds were amazing, and the building was historic and unique. The venue is such an important part of any wedding, and I chose to prioritize it for our courthouse ceremony just like I did for our original wedding plan. Generally when you get a marriage license in a state, it is good for any county!

Officiants generally come with the courthouse

Honestly, I wish all wedding venues offered a one-stop-shop like our courthouse agreement did. We didn’t have to pay for the grounds or our Judge since doing weddings is a part of her everyday responsibilities. We didn’t have to find an outside officiant, plus she knew all of the ins and outs of the legal aspect of the marriage. She was honestly the best!

Its still a special day, so make sure to treat yourself to some normal wedding day indulgences

Even though we didn’t have the traditional wedding day that we had originally planned, I did incorporate some traditional elements in the experience. I still wore a white dress and carried flowers, and we did day-of notes and wrote out our vows. We also hired a photographer to capture the excitement of the day, since it was such a huge day in our lives. (I’ll share a bunch more photos soon. I can’t wait to see what she captured!) I would recommend all of it - even though it may not be what you had planned, you still deserve to feel special on your wedding day!

Set up a relaxing honeymoon

I made the decision to book a hotel about an hour west of our courthouse venue for our honeymoon. We spent 4 days enjoying sun, sandy beaches, and each other on the Washington coast, and I would honestly say it was one of the best decisions that I ever made. It’s your wedding and you should enjoy a honeymoon, even if you end up putting a big, international one off until later.

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Despite all of the challenges leading up to it, our day really was perfect. For all of the brides out there, I really hope this helps. You have a partner who loves you and that’s really what is important — the rest will work itself out in time.