The Courthouse Wedding Trend + How to Plan One Before Your Sedona Wedding

Courthouse weddings used to have a reputation as the practical option. Get the license, say the words, snap a photo on the courthouse steps, done. That’s changing. The courthouse wedding has become its own bridal event, complete with a look, photos, champagne, dinner, and a carefully chosen handful of people. And increasingly, it doesn’t necessarily replace the wedding couples have been planning. It can become another chapter of it.

And courthouse wedding inspiration gets even better when you look at Northern Arizona. If you’re already getting your marriage license before a Sedona micro wedding or elopement, some of the area’s historic courthouses give you a pretty good reason to turn that errand into a moment of its own.

Courthouse Wedding Trend | How It Started, How It’s Going

Courthouse weddings certainly aren’t new, but the pandemic gave small ceremonies a serious image makeover. When guest limits and venue closures forced couples to rethink their plans, micro weddings, elopements, and civil ceremonies became practical alternatives. Then couples discovered they liked some of what came with them: fewer people, more intimacy, and permission to ditch traditions that didn’t feel like them.

Now, the courthouse wedding has evolved again. As Cosmopolitan puts it, couples “deliberately turn that official part into a separate moment.” Think a great outfit, photographer, champagne, dinner, and your closest people, with the larger wedding still to come.

That fits a much bigger shift in how couples celebrate. Zola’s 2026 survey of more than 11,500 couples found that 37% are hosting at least one additional wedding event, while 18% are stretching the celebration into a two- or three-day wedding weekend. A courthouse wedding can simply give couples one more moment worth remembering.

Courthouse Wedding Options

There’s no single way a courthouse wedding has to fit into your plans. Depending on what you want the experience to be, you can make it:

• The wedding: Keep it intimate and make the courthouse ceremony the main event, followed by photos, dinner, champagne, or whatever feels celebratory to you.
• A “get married now, celebrate later” moment: Make it official now, then hold your larger wedding weeks or months down the road.
• Part of your wedding week or weekend: Work the courthouse into a longer destination wedding experience, either before guests arrive or as an outing with a select few.
• The legal ceremony before a destination wedding: Take care of the legal side closer to home, but give it a little more personality than signing paperwork and heading back to work.
• A celebration for a different inner circle: Invite parents, siblings, grandparents, or friends who may not be part of the destination wedding, giving you another chance to share the experience with people you love.

Courthouse Wedding Options Near Sedona

Before a Sedona micro wedding or elopement, you’ll need to get an Arizona marriage license from a Clerk of the Superior Court. The two closest courthouse options to Sedona are the Coconino County Courthouse in Flagstaff and the Yavapai County Courthouse in Prescott. Both also happen to offer beautiful backdrops for wedding photos or for turning the courthouse trip into a celebration of its own.

Map of Courthouses Closest to Sedona

The Coconino County Superior Court is about 33 miles, or an hour’s drive, from Sedona. The Yavapai County Courthouse in Prescott is about 68 miles away, with a drive time of roughly 90 minutes.

Coconino County Superior Court

Located at 200 N. San Francisco Street in downtown Flagstaff, the Coconino County Courthouse brings some genuine Northern Arizona history to your courthouse wedding. The original courthouse was completed in 1894-95, with an addition built in 1925.

The historic portion is hard to mistake for an ordinary government building. Built from local red Moenkopi sandstone in the Richardsonian Romanesque style, it has arched windows and entrances, heavy stonework, and a four-story corner tower. The exterior has since been restored to resemble its 1925 appearance.

It’s also right in historic downtown Flagstaff, so you don’t have to end the experience when you leave the courthouse steps. Restaurants, wine bars, shops, and historic downtown buildings are within walking distance, making it easy to add photos, lunch, drinks, or dinner afterward.

Yavapai County Courthouse

The Yavapai County Courthouse is farther from Sedona, but this is one time when the longer drive may work in your favor. The trip can take you through Cottonwood and the historic mining town of Jerome before arriving in the heart of downtown Prescott.

And the courthouse is worth the drive. Completed in 1918, the four-story Classical Revival building is clad in granite and terra cotta, with massive columns, broad staircases, and the kind of stately symmetry that looks very good behind a white dress. The courthouse was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977, and its steps have seen plenty of history, including Barry Goldwater’s 1964 announcement that he was running for president.

The setting gives you even more to work with. Courthouse Plaza surrounds the building with mature trees, lawns, walkways, a historic bandstand or gazebo, a fountain, statues, and plenty of spots for photos. From there, you’re already in Prescott’s historic downtown, with Whiskey Row, restaurants, shops, galleries, and historic buildings surrounding the square.

Just nearby, couples have also added their names to Prescott’s love lock fence, attaching padlocks as a sign of locking in their love. If you’re already making the courthouse trip part of your wedding story, bringing a lock of your own feels almost too appropriate.

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Why We Love Courthouse Wedding Experiences

We talk to a lot of couples who want to cherish more of the experience leading up to their wedding. After months or even years of planning, a traditional four- or six-hour wedding can be over shockingly fast. A new generation of couples is looking beyond that single event, adding unique wedding experiences and activities that give them more time to celebrate and more moments to remember.

That’s one reason we love the courthouse wedding trend. It doesn’t have to replace the wedding. It can make the journey to it even better.

• It turns a task into a treasured moment. You already need the marriage license. Why not make something of the day you get it?
• It’s one less chore and one more thing to anticipate. Suddenly, “go to the courthouse” becomes an outfit, a road trip, photos, lunch, or champagne.
• It gives you a little quiet time together. An hour or two in the car can be a welcome stretch of calm when wedding plans and arriving guests start competing for your attention.
• You don’t have to cram it into the wedding weekend. An Arizona marriage license is valid for one year, giving you plenty of room to plan your courthouse experience weeks or even months before the wedding.

How to Plan a Courthouse Wedding Experience Near Sedona

Your courthouse wedding experience can be as simple or elaborate as you want it to be. Start with the people and pieces you need, then add whatever would make the day feel like yours.

• Transportation: Drive yourselves, rent a car, or make the trip part of the experience with chauffeured transportation.
• Two witnesses: Arizona requires two witnesses age 18 or older to sign the marriage license.
• A photographer: You only get this moment once, so consider hiring a professional to capture the courthouse, the ceremony, and everything you do afterward.
• The extras: Flowers, a courthouse outfit, champagne, lunch or dinner, a picnic, hair and makeup, or even a few of your favorite people can turn the trip into its own wedding event.

At Lantern Light Inn & Wedding Gardens of Sedona, we have Exec Rides AZ right onsite. Chauffeured black-car service can make the courthouse trip part of the fun, whether it’s just the two of you and your witnesses or a small group of your closest people.

We can also help you build a courthouse wedding experience around your celebration at Lantern Light Inn. Make it part of your Minus One Anniversary visit, add it to your wedding-week activities, or create an entirely separate moment before the big day. Your Sedona wedding may last a day, but the experience doesn’t have to.