Just weeks before their engagement party at the Boom Boom Room in New York City, Mary Blackburn, 31, and Collin Jamieson, 30, made a few phone calls. Eleven, to be precise, inviting a select group of family and friends to be part of their secret wedding ceremony that would take place the night before their engagement celebration.

“We were planning our larger California wedding, and we started thinking to ourselves that we kind of want something just for us, in the city that we love,” explains Blackburn (now Jamieson). “We wanted something that symbolized us, with just our dogs and our nearest and dearest. It was very spur of the moment.”

The wedding took place on the front porch of their Mulberry Street apartment on March 7, 2025. It was where the two had fallen in love, but also where they had created a life together with their two dogs, Cabernet and Mulberry. After the vows, their small group walked across the street to Spring Lounge—the site of their first date—where they toasted with their guests and, more importantly… swore them all to secrecy.

“We had our big wedding on June 28, 2025, and the majority of our 265 guests did not know,” she adds. “I was given advice not to tell anyone that we’re already married because it ‘takes away the magic.’ Now, thinking about it, I don’t know if that was such great advice, because our day was so magical anyway, but it was kind of fun having a little secret just between us.”

But Mary and Collin aren’t the first couple to get pre-married in secret, and they definitely won’t be the last. More couples, especially Gen Zers, have been heading to City Hall before their big day or planning their own secret ceremonies in recent years. A 2025 Annual Wedding Trends Report from Pinterest found that searches for civil ceremonies are trending—massively trending, actually—with searches for “city hall wedding dress” up 128 percent and for “civil ceremony photography” up 637 percent.

“There seems to be a full-on movement towards either a courthouse wedding or even an elopement of some kind,” says Hannah Roze, founder of Plannerd, an online wedding planning platform. “Maybe there are really intimate details about your relationship that are just for you, rather than feeling pressured to share everything in front of people you may or may not know that well. It’s about really getting back to your values: Who do you value being present, but also, who do you actually want to know everything?”

Intimacy was everything for Alexandria Thompson, 30, and Ashwani Srivastava, 39, who are planning to elope in Las Vegas in May 2026 before their March 2027 wedding. “We knew that on the actual wedding day we’d be pulled in so many directions and wouldn’t have much true quality time together,” explains Thompson, who wasn’t planning to tell her wedding guests, but agreed to let Vogue break their news (#SurpriseGrandma). “Eloping beforehand feels like a way to hold onto that original intention. Something quiet, meaningful, and grounded before the celebration becomes about everyone else.”

A pre-wedding, or civil ceremony, is intimate and private, but it’s also pragmatic for many couples, some of whom are keeping their vows secret from everyone except their accountant. Which was mostly the case for Stephanie Maitre, 33, and Sam Powers, 36, when they heard from their accountant how they could save up to $15,000 by getting married before the fiscal year.

“We had this big, expensive wedding coming up, so we thought, ‘Why not?’” laughs Powers, who raves about how nice it was to have all the paperwork—healthcare, insurance, etc.—that comes with merging lives out of the way before their larger ceremony in March 2026 at the Ancient Spanish Monastery (St. Bernard de Clairvaux Church) in North Miami Beach.

“Financially, it was the smart thing to do,” Maitre says, adding that she loved how her “mini wedding” gave her the chance to get glammed up her way (i.e., Dr. Martens with a fur coat). “It didn’t take away from anything; it enhanced it. It felt more joyous, more relaxed. I mean, there was still the common wedding drama, but nothing mattered as much because we were already married. We could just enjoy the party.”

Military couples have been doing this for decades, as a logical step towards getting both parties on the orders for a Permanent Change of Station (PCS), but the stigma of “what would grandma think?” is still in the back of many couple’s minds as they decide whether it’s worth the headache or lengthy explanations to guests who may have strong opinions one way or the other.

“Grandma still doesn’t know,” reveals Tori Romero Vega, 24, who married Joaquin Romero Vega, 23, in their neighbor’s living room in January 2024, before they were even engaged. “It’s kind of like a taboo subject, and we didn’t want to take away from the symbolism and tradition of an actual wedding.”

Despite keeping such a big secret from loved ones, many couples find getting pre-married actually lessens stress, which can be a main motivator according to veteran wedding planner Mindy Weiss, founder of Mindy Weiss Party Consultants. As weddings have continued growing bigger and performative pressure for perfection increases across social media, stress inevitably follows. “This is when I see a couple saying, ‘Let’s legally get married now, so we don’t have to worry about the paperwork,’ and move forward more calmly,” Weiss says. “With what’s going on in our world right now, it can eliminate some of the stress.”

Decreasing stress was a surprising benefit for Hannah Chubb, 31, and Brandon Warner, 31, who decided to unveil their year-old civil ceremony photos after their guests had arrived in Italy for their Tuscan wedding ceremony weekend.

“It’s super hard to get legally married abroad,” explains Chubb, who planned her courthouse wedding to be exactly one year before their Italian wedding ceremony so they could have only one anniversary to celebrate. “Having done the legal aspect a year earlier, there was so much less stress on the actual wedding day. It was so nice knowing that it was all done, and we were actually just throwing a big party for everyone. It was really just for the fun and to celebrate with family and friends.”

For these couples and their guests, the emotions, meaning, and excitement are all still there at their weddings—and are very real. The pressure, however, is what’s missing, which is why many of these couples have started referring to their ceremonial weddings as their ‘fun weddings.’ As for the pre-wedding, it’s no longer a courthouse wedding. Take a cue from these couples and call them the legal wedding or even the “just us” wedding, but whatever you choose to name it, maybe don’t call grandma… at least, not yet.