Courthouse Weddings

Stephanie Sinclair

The Chicago Tribune

In a room a bouquet’s throw from a chorus of metal detectors, couples are married each Friday at the DuPage County Courthouse. Similar vows are made daily at the Cook County Marriage Court in Chicago. For some couples it’s their first marriage, for others their fifth. Brides and grooms are dressed casual to extravagant for the ceremony that’s short enough to fit in on a lunch break. For the judges who preside over these weddings, it is a refreshing break form the gloom and doom of everyday proceedings. “I love doing weddings. This is the fun part. The people come in, they’re happy, they leave happy and we can help them be a little happier,” said Judge Bart, an associate judge in DuPage County who has guided couples into marriage for 19 years. “It’s the one time when you’re a judge that you have a very nice situation (in front of you).” Approximately 11,200 couples are married at these two courthouses annually. Judge Edmund Bart pronounces a young Lithuanian couple husband and wife inside the suburban DuPage County Courthouse.

Stephanie Sinclair, "Courthouse Weddings," in POYi Archive, Item #30902, http://archive.poy.org/items/show/30902 (accessed June 16, 2025).