The Best Courthouse Bridal Looks Ever, From Dua Lipa to Charli XCX

Reported by Vogue.

The courthouse wedding has always been fashion's most underrated runway. No bridal industrial complex, no seven-layer organza gown requiring its own zip code — just a woman, a look, and a moment. And if the recent wave of celebrity civil ceremonies proves anything, it's that the best bridal fashion often happens outside a church.

According to Vogue, Dua Lipa set the bar at London's Old Marylebone Town Hall — the same storied venue that once hosted Paul McCartney and Liam Gallagher — in a custom Schiaparelli ivory skirt suit sculpted by Daniel Roseberry, finished with a wide-brimmed Stephen Jones hat. The reference was unmistakable: Bianca Jagger, 1971, YSL Le Smoking. What was once a rebellious act of bridal rule-breaking has hardened into its own kind of elegance. The bridal suit isn't an alternative anymore — it's a statement with decades of cool behind it. Charli XCX leaned brat rather than bridal at Hackney Town Hall in 2026, marrying The 1975's George Daniel in a Vivienne Westwood Nova Cora mini. Short, sharp, entirely on-brand.

The Suit, the Set, and the T-Shirt

Julia Garner's courthouse vision was always pants. "I love pant suits, and I always thought that if I were to get married in a courthouse, I wanted to wear one," she said — and she delivered, in a pleated Danielle Frankel tunic and pant set with lettuce hems at New York's City Hall in 2020. Sofia Nebiolo went a different direction: a quilted off-white coat and crepe dress from The Row's spring 2020 collection, tracked down with days to spare before her Paris ceremony. For Alexandra Lalonde Bouygues, also wed in Paris, it was a white double-breasted Ralph Lauren suit gifted by her mother-in-law, with an embroidered C stitched above the heart as her something blue. Nodaleto founder Julia Toledano wore Dior's modern bar jacket with wide-leg trousers and, naturally, her own Bulla Smith gold mules. Natalie Salmon, married in pandemic-era Portugal, ordered her 16Arlington feathered white dress just one week before the ceremony. Then there's Rachael Cusick, who walked New York's City Hall in a plain white T-shirt, Nike sneakers, and a layered tulle skirt — and somehow looked exactly right.

The throughline isn't minimalism or maximalism. It's intention. Every one of these women knew precisely who they were dressing for: themselves. The courthouse wedding strips away the theater and leaves only the choice — and the best ones make that choice count.

When the venue is stripped back, the outfit becomes the whole story.

Read the original at Vogue.