Vendors:

Photography - @deena_leigh

Dinner: Joe T Garcias - Fort Worth

Location: Fort Worth Courthouse

Hair & Makeup by me

In honor of our three year wedding anniversary, I wanted to share our wedding photos from our special day and share our decision on why we decided to elope!

Andrew & I met back in 2014 & have been together ever since. He wanted kids right away, but I wanted to wait. It wasn’t until fall of 2022 that we decided to start building a family together but we wanted to get married first..so around early 2023 we started looking at rings and he proposed in April of 2023!

We knew we wanted to get married pretty quickly, but we also were funding the wedding ourselves and we didn’t want to go too crazy. Our plan was to have a micro wedding with about 50 of our closest family & friends, we found a location, paid a deposit for the venue & florals and we were set for an October date.

However, plans quickly changed when we found out we were pregnant in June 2023 about 2 months after the proposal! We loved the idea of all of our family celebrating and having a big party… however with a little one on the way, we decided to scrap the plan. We just decided to go to the courthouse & save money! This was honestly a better plan and what we wanted originally. We never wanted a huge wedding, as soon as we started developing a guest list for the micro wedding, it became overwhelming with how many people we actually needed to invite so no one felt left out!

We canceled our venue, canceled our florals (besides my bouquet) and I originally got a dress from Davids bridal that was NOT going to fit me at 5 months pregnant. So I found a dress from Club London that was maternity friendly & white! https://go.shopmy.us/p-92192828

I knew I didn’t want to go to just any courthouse (although you can go to whichever one you want!). I just loved the architecture of the Fort Worth courthouse & I still wanted to wear a dress and have a photographer, so I needed the location to be picturesque. I called the courthouse and set an appointment and the earliest they had was Oct 6th (our original wedding date was Oct 20th)

We set the appointment and we were good to go! We went and got the marriage license at our local county clerk office (although I didn’t realize different counties have different designs for the license so if you care what it looks like, go to a location that offers one with a design you like!) and we brought it with us to the courthouse on or wedding date. We also had to pay $100 (although now i think its $200) cash only.

Tip: Bring cash with you to the courthouse & if you plan to go to Joe T’s, they are also cash only! We completely forgot to take out cash lol, it was so chaotic leading up to this so it slipped our minds.

They also told us up to 14 people allowed in the courtroom (however, i think we snuck in a little extra) just as long as you aren’t disturbing other ceremonies taking place or being loud in the hallways. Our photographer counted as one person and we also counted toward the total amount.

Once our timeslot was available at 1pm, we went into the courtroom and got married in front of the judge. Our judge was great and made the process quick and easy and even provided some kind words. After the ceremony, we took pictures with the family & had them meet us at the restaurant while we finished our photos.

Joe T’s typically doesn’t take reservations, but we were able to grab some tables in the patio that were perfect for our big group! We took some photos in the garden and it was a great end to a perfect day!

If you need more information on weddings at the courthouse, here is the link! https://www.tarrantcountytx.gov/en/justice-of-the-peace-courts/justice-1/weddings.html

First Look: