The Tamesis
Just weeks before their engagement party at New York City’s Boom Boom Room, Mary Blackburn, 31, and Colin Jamieson, 30, made a few phone calls. Rather, Eleven invites a select group of family and friends to their secret wedding, which will take place the night before the engagement celebration.
“We were planning a larger wedding in California, and then we started thinking we wanted to have a wedding that was just ours in a city we loved,” explains Blackburn (now Jemison). “We wanted something symbolic usjust our dogs and the people closest to us. It was all spur of the moment. “
The wedding took place on March 7, 2025, on the front porch of the Mulberry Street Apartments. This is where the two fell in love and where they created a life together with their two dogs, Cabernet and Mulberry. After the vows were taken, their small group walked across the street to the Spring Lounge – the site of their first date – where they toasted with their guests and, more importantly… they were sworn to secrecy.
“We had a huge wedding on June 28, 2025, and most of the 265 guests had no idea,” she added. “I was advised not to tell anyone we were married because it would ‘take away the magic.'” Thinking about it now, I don’t know if that was such good advice, as our days were so Anyway, it’s amazing, but it’s also fun to have a little secret between us. “
But Mary and Colin aren’t the first couple to secretly pre-marry, and they certainly won’t be the last. In recent years, more and more couples, especially Gen Z, have been heading to town hall or planning their own secret ceremonies before their big day. Pinterest’s 2025 Annual Wedding Trends Report found that searches for civil ceremonies are trending (massive, actually), with searches for “city hall wedding dresses” up 128% and “civil ceremony photography” up 637%.
“There seems to be an overall movement toward courthouse weddings and even elopements,” says Hannah Roze, founder of online wedding planning platform Plannerd. “Maybe there are some intimate details in your relationship that really work for you, rather than feeling pressured to share everything in front of people you may or may not know well. It’s really getting back to your values: who you value being there, and, who you really want in your relationship.” Know everything? “
Intimacy is everything for Alexandria Thompson, 30, and Ashwani Srivastava, 39, who plan to elope in Las Vegas in May 2026, followed by a March 2027 wedding. “We knew that on the actual wedding day, we were going to be pulled in a lot of directions and not have a lot of real quality time,” explains Thompson, who had not originally planned to tell her wedding guests but agreed to let Vogue reveal their news (#SurpriseGrandma). “Eloping early felt like a way to stay true to the original intention. Something quiet, meaningful, and down to earth before the celebration affected everyone else.”
Prenuptials, or civil ceremonies, are intimate and private, but also pragmatic for many couples, some of whom keep their vows secret from everyone but their accountants. That was mostly the case for Stephanie Maitre, 33, and Sam Powers, 36, when they learned from their accountant that they could save up to $15,000 by getting married before the fiscal year.
“We were about to have a big, expensive wedding, so we thought, ‘Why not?'” laughed Powers, who marveled at how nice it would be to get all the paperwork that comes with life — health care, insurance, etc. — out of the way before a larger ceremony in March 2026 at the Historic Spanish Convent (Church of St. Bernard of Clairvaux) in North Miami Beach.
