If you want to keep your private affairs private, it might be best to just avoid celebrity altogether. Some famous folks have managed to find the right balance between public and private, however — and frankly, it’s impressive what they manage to keep out of the public eye, given how brightly the spotlight shines on their every move.
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For example, several celebrity couples have managed to pull off top-secret weddings without the infringement of fans or paparazzi. In fact, Gwyneth Paltrow has done it twice — once to Chris Martin and once to Brad Falchuk. That’s especially impressive. Still others, like Kerry Washington, have kept the details of their nuptials so under wraps that even the most basic details are hardly known.
Given that weddings can take on many forms, from intimate ceremonies to raucous parties, celebrities who keep them secret have got to be employing special superpowers to pull that off. We’ve rounded up a list of 26 celebrity couples who’ve had secret weddings throughout the years, with whatever details we can find — and you might be surprised by who made the list.
A version of this story was originally published in November 2018.
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Fred Armisen & Riki Lindhome
Image Credit: Ali Gradischer/Getty Images Riki Lindhome dropped two bombshells in July 2024 when she told People that not only did she and comedian Fred Armisen tie the knot in June 2022, but they also became an “insta-family” when Lindhome welcomed a son via surrogate in March 2022 — just a few weeks after the longtime friends officially began dating.
“It’s not a secret, but we didn’t really tell people,” Lindhome said of their secret wedding. “We didn’t announce it or anything. And we thought people would hear about it eventually. And that’s what happened, one friend at a time.”
“I didn’t even tell my mom,” the Wednesday star admitted. “I never wanted to get married. I am not a wedding person. It’s not for me. But this was just for us. We also didn’t want to hurt people’s feelings by not having a wedding — and we didn’t want to get pressured into having one. We just wanted to be like, ‘Guess what we did a few months ago?’”
As for the ceremony itself, the couple kept it quick and intimate. “The wedding was three minutes long and then we got some ice cream,” she said. No biggie!
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Millie Bobby Brown & Jake Bongiovi
Image Credit: Kristina Bumphrey for Variety While we knew Millie Bobby Brown and Jake Bongiovi were happily engaged and wedding planning, they managed to pull off an intimate mid-May 2024 ceremony without anyone knowing!
Sources who confirmed the wedding said it was an intimate affair and the couple are planning a bigger event later in the year.
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Elizabeth Reaser & Bruce Gilbert
Image Credit: David Crotty/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images After nearly seven years together, Elizabeth Reaser and Bruce Gilbert tied the knot. Back in Aug 2023 in Italy, but didn’t reveal it until April 2024 to Vogue.
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Johnny & Morgan Galecki
Image Credit: Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic Big Bang Theory alum Johnny Galecki confirmed he and Morgan secretly married to Architectural Digest.
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Michelle White & Donald Glover
Image Credit: Kevin Mazur/VF23/WireImage for Vanity Fair Michelle White and Donald Glover secretly married! While filming his new comedy series Mr and Mrs Smith, Glover revealed that he and White, after nine years together, secretly tied the knot sometime in 2023.
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Brian Maillian & Beverly Johnson
Image Credit: Steve Granitz/FilmMagic Supermodel Beverly Johnson and her longtime fiance Brian Maillian have tied the knot! The pair first got together in 2015, got engaged in 2020, and Johnson revealed they got married on Oct 13, 2023.
During an appearance on Sirius XM’s Sway in the Morning, per Page Six, Johnson revealed they got married in Las Vegas on her birthday. “Two days before my birthday, Oct. 13, [Brian] kept saying, ‘What do you want for your birthday?’”
She added, “I sat up in the bed on Oct. 11 and said, ‘I know what I want for my birthday. … I want to get married.’”
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Frances Bean Cobain & Riley Hawk
Image Credit: Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images, Denise Truscello/Getty Images for Clique Hospitality After two years of dating, Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love’s daughter Frances Bean Cobain and Tony Hawk’s son Riley Hawk married! While news broke of the nuptials in late Oct 2023, the duo actually married in Los Angeles on Oct. 7, per Page Six.
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Kat Graham & Bryant Wood
Image Credit: Daniele Venturelli/WireImage After four months of dating, Kat Graham and her best friend/ business partner Bryant Wood secretly wed this past week, per the Blast.
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Billy Crudup & Naomi Watts
Image Credit: Joy Malone/Getty Images On June 9, Billy Crudup and Naomi Watts married at a courthouse after six years together, and for a solid day, rumors swirled that the pair married. They later confirmed the news on social media that they secretly eloped at the courthouse in the summer of 2023!
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Josh Hall & Christina Hall
Image Credit: Michael Buckner/Variety via Getty Images In April 2022, Christina Haack revealed that she was officially Mrs. Christina Hall. The Christina On The Coast star revealed that she and Joshua Hall tied the knot and kept their nuptials a secret from fans.
In July 2024, however, the pair called it quits when Haack filed for divorce citing “irreconcilable differences.”
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Jon Batiste & Suleika Jaouad
Image Credit: Rob Latour/Variety Grammy-winner Jon Batiste and writer Suleika Jaouad tied the knot in February 2022 in an act of “defiance,” Batiste shared in an interview. Batiste revealed the news during his profile on CBS Sunday Morning, publicly disclosing the longtime couple wed the day before Jaouad’s bone marrow transplant as she battles Leukemia for a second time, per Entertainment Tonight.
“It’s an act of defiance,” Batiste said. “The darkness will try to overtake you, but just turn on the light. Focus on the light. Hold onto the light.”
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John Cena & Shay Shariatzadeh
Image Credit: Priscilla Grant/Everett Collection John Cena and longtime girlfriend Shay Shariatzadeh tied the knot in a secret Florida ceremony this October after a whirlwind romance between the former WWE star and the engineering project manager. Two years after his split with Nikki Bella, Cena seems to have found his own happy ending as Nikki has moved on with Artem Chigvintsev.
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Dwayne Johnson & Lauren Hashian
Image Credit: Sthanlee B. Mirador/Sipa USA Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and Lauren Hashian secretly tied the knot Aug 18, 2019, in a private ceremony in Hawaii.
“Our Hawaiian wedding was beautiful and I want to thank our incredible staff for their outstanding work,” Johnson shared on Instagram days after the event.
“To carry out my #1 goal of complete privacy, no wedding planners or outside resources were hired. Everything you see was created by hand, by staff and family only.”
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Princess Beatrice
Image Credit: Peter Byrne/PA Wire After having had to reschedule her wedding twice, the royal finally tied the knot and married Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi in a secret ceremony with close family in attendance.
Buckingham Palace confirmed the nuptials in a statement writing, “The private wedding ceremony of Princess Beatrice and Mr. Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi took place at 11am on Friday 17th July at The Royal Chapel of All Saints at Royal Lodge, Windsor. The small ceremony was attended by The Queen, The Duke of Edinburgh and close family. The wedding took place in accordance with all relevant Government Guidelines.”
While it was a joyous occasion, it was bittersweet for Queen Elizabeth who reportedly was particularly sentimental about the wedding being the “last royal wedding she’ll get to attend”.
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Beyoncé & Jay-Z
Image Credit: Mike Coppola/Getty Images In 2008, Beyoncé and Jay-Z married in a top-secret ceremony at his Manhattan penthouse, which was decorated with 70,000 Dendrobium orchids flown in from Thailand, according to People. In the decade since, only some footage and a handful of photos from the wedding have been seen. Guests weren’t allowed recording devices.
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Amy Schumer & Chris Fischer
Image Credit: Waiter McBride/Getty Images Amy Schumer announced her wedding to Chris Fischer via Instagram, according to E! News. Two days after the two tied the knot in a small ceremony in Malibu, she shared photos on Instagram captioned, simply, “Yup.”
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Mila Kunis & Ashton Kutcher
Image Credit: C Flanigan/Getty Images Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis held a secret wedding party over Independence Day weekend in 2015, which he told Ellen DeGeneres during an appearance on her show was “a ninja effort.” He said they kept the nuptials under wraps so that they wouldn’t attract a crowd of paparazzi or fans.
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Cameron Diaz & Benji Madden
Image Credit: Donato Sardella/Getty Images After just seven months together, Cameron Diaz and Good Charlotte guitarist Benji Madden got married in a private ceremony at their Beverly Hills home in 2015, according to Hello! magazine. “We got married in our living room in front of our friends,” Diaz told radio host Andy Cohen. “Had a little party in our backyard on the tennis court and yeah. Otherwise it would have been something else.”
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Gwyneth Paltrow & Brad Falchuk
Image Credit: Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/Getty Images In September 2018, Gwyneth Paltrow wed Brad Falchuk, whom she met while filming a guest role on Glee in 2014 after “consciously uncoupling” from her ex-husband, Chris Martin. The couple married in secret at their home in the Hamptons; Paltrow shared a photo of their matching wedding bands on her Instagram on Sept. 30.
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Penélope Cruz & Javier Bardem
Image Credit: Emma McIntyre/Getty Images Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem exchanged vows in front of a small group of friends and family at a friend’s home in the Bahamas in July 2010, according to People. They started dating in 2007 but have kept their relationship out of the public eye the entire time they’ve been together.
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Blake Lively & Ryan Reynolds
Image Credit: Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds married in a top-secret ceremony at Boone Hall Plantation in South Carolina in September 2012.
According to People, Florence Welch (from Florence and the Machine) performed during the evening reception which took place in a white tent overlooking the water.
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Kerry Washington & Nnamdi Asomugha
Image Credit: Araya Diaz/Getty Images We know virtually nothing about Kerry Washington’s wedding to NFL cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha, except for the location listed on their wedding certificate. Harper’s Bazaar reported that the couple exchanged vows in Hailey, Idaho, in 2013. Everything else is a total mystery.
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Julia Roberts & Daniel Moder
Image Credit: Mark Davis/Getty Images In 2002, Julia Roberts and photographer Daniel Moder invited their loved ones over to their ranch for an Independence Day party — then surprised them all with a wedding, Us Weekly reported.
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Neil Patrick Harris & David Burtka
Image Credit: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka were engaged for more than five years before New York legalized same-sex marriage in 2011. Three years later, after spending a decade together — including three and a half years as parents to their two kids — they tied the knot in Italy, according to People.
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Jada Pinkett & Will Smith
Image Credit: Jason LaVeris/Getty Images Jada Pinkett Smith revealed in an episode of her Facebook series Red Table Talk that she cried the whole way down the aisle at her 1997 wedding to Will Smith, according to HuffPost. She was three months pregnant with their son, Jaden, and apparently the only reason she went through with the marriage was that her mother wanted her to. They had a private ceremony at the Cloisters, a mansion near her hometown of Baltimore.
The pair have been separated since 2016.
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Calista Flockhart & Harrison Ford
Image Credit: Steve Granitz/Getty Images After dating for more than eight years, Harrison Ford and Calista Flockhart married in a super-casual ceremony in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 2009 while Ford was filming Cowboys and Aliens, per People.