Planning Your Nashville Destination Wedding or Elopement
Destination weddings are increasingly popular, especially with millennial couples. According to a 2023 survey by The Knot, 19% of couples choose to get married somewhere other than their current or former hometown. Already a bachelorette hotspot, Nashville is a popular (and fantastic) choice for couples looking to make their wedding an experience. If you’re thinking of tying the knot in Music City, there are a few things you need to know.
How to Get Married
Come Prepared
While Nashville’s neon strip may have some similarities to Las Vegas, getting legally married in Tennessee requires a bit more planning than a shotgun wedding in Sin City. We go into detail on how and where to get a marriage license on our “How To Get Married” page, but here’s the TL;DR:
You’ll need to file an application online before going to the county clerk in person to obtain a marriage license. Most county clerk’s offices are open during the day, Monday to Friday, but some have Saturday hours; check directly with the clerk’s office before heading that way. Make sure you have a government-issued ID, proof of your social security number like a social security card or W2, and the license fee. You’ll also be asked to provide your biological parents’ name and place of birth if you have that information and, if you’ve been previously married, the date your divorce was finalized.
Once you have your license, you’ll need an officiant to officiate and sign your license. Your license must be issued in Tennessee to have it officiated in Nashville (i.e., a Nashville officiant can’t officiate a license issued in Maryland). Return the completed license to the county clerk who issued it within three days of your wedding, and your marriage is now official.
We can tell you from personal experience that the process isn’t nearly as complicated as it sounds, but not everyone wants to worry about keeping their social security card safe while traveling. Some couples choose to get legally married in their home state and have a symbolic or purely religious ceremony at their destination. Whether you make your marriage legal in Nashville or New York, just be sure to get your union properly officiated at some point if you want the legal protections and benefits of marriage.
Come with a Plan
While spontaneity can be romantic, it’s less than ideal when planning a destination wedding. You and your guests (if you have any) will need to know where to go, when to go there, and how to get there. This doesn’t mean you have to micromanage every moment of your wedding trip, but you’ll need to have some core details planned out.
The most important first step in planning any wedding is determining your budget. This will guide your choices on everything from the venue to the size of the guest list. Remember that your budget will likely include:
A venue (unless you find a free location; more on that below)
Depending on the venue, you may also be responsible for hiring linens, furniture, and even plates
A planner if you want one
An officiant
Food
Drinks
Cake or dessert
A photographer and/or videographer
Music
Clothes
Flowers or other decor
Transport to the venue and parking
Flights
Hotel or Airbnb stays
How much, if anything, you choose to spend on each of these items is up to you. You might have a dry wedding, purchase your flowers or cake from a grocery store, or have a friend photograph the wedding for you. Or, on the other end of the spectrum, you may want to splash out on paying for hotel rooms and transportation for your guests, fine-dining meals, or a landmark venue like Nashville’s Parthenon.
Once you know how much money you’re working with, it’s time to book your venue and plan your guest list. Everyone’s friends and family are unique, but most people need advance notice to attend a destination wedding. Guests will have to schedule time off from work, save money for travel and wedding expenses, and possibly arrange child or pet care. As a general rule of thumb, save-the-date notifications should go out to guests 9 months to a year before your wedding date, and invites should be sent a minimum of three months before your wedding day.
If planning isn’t your thing, consider an all-inclusive venue. All-inclusive venues provide more than just a place to get married. Most will cover things like food, flowers, and even DJs, wedding coordinators, and cake. This means you don’t have to find and vet multiple vendors from afar. Planning mostly involves making selections from a predefined list of options. Some couples find this type of wedding planning impersonal, but our friend Melanie had a great experience with her all-inclusive Nashville venue. You can read more about her experience here, but in short, both the couple and their guests had an amazing time, and multiple guests commented on how unique and stylish the wedding was - despite most of it being chosen from a limited list of options.
A Note on Hotels and Timing
As a tourist hotspot, Nashville has an abundance of hotels and vacation rentals but also has prices to match the demand. Don’t worry; there are plenty of affordable options around the city and some hotels even offer discounts for weddings who book blocks of rooms in advance. Block booking usually requires you to reserve a block of ten to thirty rooms which the hotel will hold for your guests and rent to them at a lower rate. This also guarantees that there will be space for everyone attending your wedding.
Not all hotels offer block booking or significant discounts for doing so, and these deals often require you to guarantee that a certain percentage of the reserved rooms will be filled (usually 80-90%). If too many rooms go unfilled, you may be responsible for covering the money the hotel lost by leaving the rooms empty. You’ll need to negotiate the exact terms of your contract directly with the hotel. If you’re having a small wedding and expect your guests to need less than ten hotel rooms or you’re on a tight budget, this may not be the option for you.
Whether you decide to book a block of rooms, share an Airbnb, or let your guests find their own accommodations, you’ll need to be aware of big local events happening around the time of your wedding. For example, you may struggle to find available (or at least affordable) hotel rooms during the first week of June when tens of thousands of visitors descend on Nashville for CMA Fest. This doesn’t mean you can’t get married in Nashville during big events like CMA Fest (though you may want to avoid it unless you really want to attend the festival). Rather, it means you’ll need to book your rooms and vendors much further in advance and potentially at a higher price. The same goes for major holidays. Many vendors and venues charge more on holidays and holiday weekends, and travel is more expensive. If you’re on a budget, we recommend booking any vendors or venues well in advance and avoiding major holidays as well as both peak wedding and tourist seasons.
Lean Into the Destination
The experiential nature of destination weddings is part of what makes them so fun. It’s like taking a vacation with your favorite people - and you get to come home married! With that in mind, you may want to plan some extra activities surrounding your wedding, especially if you have a limited guest list. Nashville in particular lends itself to these kinds of adventures.
In addition to a rehearsal or welcome dinner, you may want to explore the Country Music Hall of Fame with your guests, catch a concert with your friends, or book an evening cruise on the Lady Nashville sternwheeler. There are also classic bachelor/ette activities that you may choose to wrap into your wedding weekend. Lower Broadway is a great spot for a bar crawl, trying your hand at riding a mechanical bull, or a spin on one of the many popular pedal taverns and party buses.
Here’s a quick list of activities we recommend to our own friends and family when they visit Nashville:
The Country Music Hall of Fame
Catch a show at the Grand Ole Opry
The National Museum of African American Music
The Frist Museum
Cheekwood Estate and Gardens
Do a Downtown honky-tonk crawl
Check out a writers’ round at beloved local venues like The Bluebird Cafe and Bobby’s Idle Hour
Explore neighborhoods like East Nashville, 12 South, Hillsboro Village, or Wedgewood-Houston
Where to Get Married
Free and Cheap
We have a whole article on where to get married in Nashville for free, but there’s one important caveat to keep in mind.: it’s easier to get away with a free elopement when you only have the couple and maybe a handful of guests. Many of these locations offer paid packages for larger weddings and may not take kindly to ten or twenty people attempting to avoid their fees. Basically, if you’re planning a wedding rather than an elopement, you’ll probably need to pay at least a small fee for a venue.
Centennial Park, Cumberland Park, and other Metro Nashville Parks locations
Located west of Downtown, Centennial Park is home to Music City’s famous Parthenon replica. The 132-acre park features many scenic spots to elope, including the Sunken Garden and the picturesque Lake Watauga, complete with ducks and a fountain. If you want to celebrate in the heart of downtown Nashville, Cumberland Park offers stunning views of the Nashville skyline just steps away from Broadway. Most Metro Nashville parks have picnic shelters with affordable rental prices ($40-$250) if you want to host a larger event or reception after your ceremony.
Outside the Tennessee State Capitol
The Tennessee State Capitol is a striking Greek Revival building surrounded by manicured grounds. Located on top of the aptly named Capitol Hill, visitors can enjoy gorgeous views of the War Memorial Plaza and downtown Nashville. It’s a great, panoramic spot for a free elopement. Best yet, it’s a short walk down the hill to Broadway and the rest of Downtown where you can celebrate your nuptials.
Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center
While not located downtown, the Gaylord Opryland Resort is right next to the Grand Ole Opry and features some truly beautiful locations for an elopement. The resort has three massive glass atriums, each with a unique theme. Whether you visit in the middle of summer or the dead of winter, these spaces offer climate control, water features, and beautiful plantings. You can get away with eloping for free if you limit your wedding to just you, your partner, and witnesses. If you want a larger celebration, the resort offers wedding packages. You can even book blocks of rooms at a discounted rate for you and your guests.
The John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge
This location straddles the line between the “Free and Cheap” category and the “Totally Nashville” category. If you’ve been a Country fan at any point in the last 20 years, you’ve probably seen this pedestrian bridge. It’s made appearances in multiple music videos including Big & Rich’s first hit ‘Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy)’ and Dolly Parton’s ‘Together You and I’ and has even been named a National Historic Landmark. The bridge offers amazing views of Downtown and is walkable to all of the action. It’s also one of the few free locations where you can get away with having a slightly larger wedding party.
Totally Nashville
The Ryman Auditorium
Known as the Mother Church of Country Music, the Ryman Auditorium is the original home of the Grand Ole Opry. While the famous radio show no longer broadcasts from the Ryman stage, the concert hall remains one of Nashville’s premier music venues. For a truly Nashville wedding experience, you can rent parts of the Ryman (even the stage!) for your wedding event. Small elopements (two to three people) may be able to get away with performing their ceremony outside the theatre at no cost. Alternatively, a backstage tour is an excellent group activity for your wedding weekend.
The Parthenon
One of Nashville’s most recognizable landmarks, the Parthenon building in Centennial Park is the world’s only 1:1 scale replica of the iconic Greek temple. While you can have a small elopement on the exterior porch for free, the interior can be rented for larger events. For prices ranging for $5,000 to $10,000 depending on the day, you can get married under the gilded gaze of the 41-foot statue of Athena in the Naos room.
Downtown Rooftops
If you really want to be in the thick of it, there are several hotels near Broadway with stunning rooftops available for event rentals. The Joseph, Maragaritaville Hotel, The Bobby, and more have bars and event spaces on their roofs that offer beautiful views of downtown. Many of these spaces also have in-house catering, meaning you have one less detail to figure out from afar. For a fun roof-top bar crawl downtown Nashville you can start at the one end of Lower Broadway at the Hard Rock Cafe, then check out Blake Shelton’s Old Red which is the highest rooftop bar, then end up at the historic ‘Tootsies’, and visit plenty in between.
The Country Music Hall of Fame
If you’re getting married in Nashville to celebrate your love of Country music, there’s no better place to get married than the Country Music Hall of Fame. The museum has thirteen event spaces, including two theaters for an on-stage reception and the iconic Hall of Fame Rotunda. If you’re having a large event and are really looking to splurge, the Hall of Fame does full museum buyouts. Alternatively, a visit to the museum is a great group activity for your wedding weekend.
Ready to plan your Nashville Wedding?
Whether you’re planning to elope with just your partner or host a destination wedding, Music City is a great place to get married. If you’re ready to start planning your Nashville wedding, you’ll need a great officiant. Zelda consistently ranks in the top place of 3 of most popular Nashville wedding officiants for the past 3 years. Get in touch to book your wedding or elopement and learn more about our services, including our Concierge In-Person Marriage Document Return Service so that you can ride off into the sunset without worrying about going back to the county clerk.