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<\/p>\nSANTA BARBARA\u00a0\u2014\u00a0The late-morning sun peeked through a gauzy veil of fog, bright laughter echoing over the giddy whisper of tulle as the brides posed for pictures outside the Santa Barbara County Courthouse. <\/p>\n
Moments earlier, Zo\u00eb Weber and Jordan Cantor of Hollywood had traded vows above the compound\u2019s famous Sunken Garden. The brief, heartfelt legal ceremony was made sweeter because the date, June 26, was the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision that legalized gay marriage across the U.S. in 2015.<\/p>\n
Minutes before that, their officiant, Santa Barbara County Supervisor Roy Lee, had married off Brittney Hua, 27, and Steven Ly, 26. The Arroyo High School sweethearts made their relationship official that same day 11 years ago, an anniversary that matches their San Gabriel Valley area code, 626.<\/p>\n
Lee was soon rushing across the lawn to join Carmen Cardenas Ayon and Santiago Martinez, both 28, who\u2019d come up from Compton for the last-minute wedding of their dreams. <\/p>\n
The groom, a bus mechanic, was starting his shift around 4:30 am Wednesday morning when he happened to check the courthouse website for cancellations and saw Friday\u2019s open call event. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe was like \u2018We can get married on Friday in Santa Barbara!\u2019\u201d the bride recalled. \u201cAnd I was like \u2018OK, let\u2019s do it!\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n
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Minshi DeHuff, 35, and Andrew DeHuff, 39, of San Francisco marry at City Hall on June 26.<\/p>\n
(Sarahbeth Maney \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n
Less than a decade ago, courthouse weddings were still the purview of camera-shy celebrities, mid-life second marriages and mother-to-be brides. But since the pandemic, their popularity has boomed \u2014 transforming certain courthouses and municipal buildings into sought-after locales to tie the knot. <\/p>\n
Snagging an appointment to elope has become almost as difficult as scoring Olympics tickets.<\/p>\n
In Santa Barbara, marriage appointments open 90 days in advance, with new slots released every hour while the courthouse is open. On a recent weekday, slots in October vanished in less than five minutes. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey pretty much get picked up as soon as we release them,\u201d said County Clerk Melinda Greene. \u201cWe have people from all over the world.\u201d <\/p>\n
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Here comes the bride \u2014 and another, and another and another\u2026\u00a0<\/p>\n
So-called \u201cmicro weddings<\/a>\u201d have emerged as an industry unto themselves amid the soaring costs of a traditional ceremony. A recent Bank of America analysis <\/a>pegged the average cost of an American wedding at $36,000 \u2014 significantly more expensive than a year of rent at the median price in Los Angeles, or two years of in-state tuition at UC Berkeley. <\/p>\n \u201cA lot of my elopement brides are low-key and private,\u201d said Asha Marshall of So Fetch Photography<\/a>, who specializes in courthouse ceremonies. \u201cThey don\u2019t want to be spending all that money.\u201d<\/p>\n The shift toward boutique legal ceremonies has transformed the marriage business and the municipal buildings where such nuptials take place, turning elopement from a breezy wedding alternative into a formal contact sport. <\/p>\n \u201cIt books up so fast, you have to be online at the exact time [of day] you plan on having your appointment,\u201d explained the photographer, whose viral 2024 snaps helped supercharge the Santa Barbara courthouse\u2019s popularity on social media. \u201cA lot of my brides get stressed out.\u201d <\/p>\n Shuting Zang, 28, is photographed on her wedding day at San Francisco City Hall.<\/p>\n (Sarahbeth Maney \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n Santa Barbara\u2019s Moorish Revival hall of justice has long been Southern California\u2019s most coveted civil marriage spot. Vice President Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff took their vows in its storied Mural Room in 2014. Reality TV star Kourtney Kardashian and Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker were wed on the steps outside in 2022. <\/p>\n But officials say demand has exploded in recent years, thanks in part to Pinterest and TikTok. <\/p>\n \u201cWe see dozens a day, starting at 8 o\u2019clock in the morning,\u201d said Lee, the county supervisor and officiant for the day, whose office is across the street. \u201cI see them line up right there outside the doors.\u201d <\/p>\n Ly, the newlywed from El Monte, said that in order to secure their spot at the Santa Barbara courthouse, he and his bride were prepared for an experience akin to buying stadium tour tickets. <\/p>\n \u201cBoth of us were on two separate computers, each of us trying to copy and paste the details so we could get in early,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI let him do the first one,\u201d his wife, Hua, said. \u201cHe didn\u2019t get it, so I did the second one and I got it.\u201d<\/p>\n Others, including Amy Rodriguez, were left scrounging for cancellations. <\/p>\n \u201cI decided one night, let me double check if there\u2019s an opening,\u201d the bride said as she waited for her groom-to-be near the front entrance to the courthouse, where wedding parties must pass through a metal detector. \u201cI logged in \u2014 it was literally midnight, maybe one o\u2019clock \u2014 and got the slot.\u201d <\/p>\n The race to the clerk\u2019s window is not limited to Santa Barbara. Other popular courthouses such as the L.A. County Courthouse in Beverly Hills and the Old County Courthouse<\/a> in Santa Ana have seen a similar spikes in demand.<\/p>\n But no municipal building in the state compares to San Francisco City Hall, where Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio tied the knot in 1954. <\/p>\n Elias Salem, 33, left, and Samuel Tyler, 33, of San Francisco pose after being married at San Francisco City Hall.<\/p>\n (Sarahbeth Maney \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n Today, the gilded Beaux-Arts building sees as many as 7,000 marriage ceremonies a year. That\u2019s two-thirds again more than its Santa Barbara rival, which does about 4,000, and roughly the same number as take place at the Norwalk headquarters of the Los Angeles County Registrar, a top contender for the country\u2019s busiest wedding venue after New York\u2019s Manhattan Marriage Bureau and the Office of Civil Marriages in Las Vegas. <\/p>\n \u201cOver the last three to four years it\u2019s been really dramatic,\u201d said Cheri Tran<\/a>, a popular elopement photographer in San Francisco. \u201cWhen I did my first City Hall elopement six or seven years ago, we were only dodging 20 or 30 people. Now it\u2019s hundreds.\u201d <\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784024834_449_.jpeg\")
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