Why Chrissy Teigen And John Legend Had A Courthouse Wedding Before Their Big Ceremony

John Legend and Chrissy Teigen are among the most popular and seemingly happiest celebrity couples in show business. Legend and Teigen first met in 2006, they tied the knot in 2013, they share four kids, and they are enjoying success in both their personal and professional lives. Every aspect of Teigen and Legend's romance has felt like it was out of a fairytale — including a swoon-worthy wedding back in September 2013, when they wed in Lake Como, Italy.

However, before they enjoyed the grandeur of their destination wedding, the famous couple actually had to go for something considerably less showy — a quick courthouse wedding in New York City, with only one of Teigen's supermodel pals as a witness. As Teigen later explained to E! News, they realized that their wedding in Italy wouldn't legally count when they returned home if they didn't also officially wed in the U.S.

"We are dumb and didn't realize that our Italian wedding would not be recognized unless we had a real ceremony in New York City," she told the outlet in October 2013, about a month after the big event. "So Irina Shayk was our witness — the most beautiful woman on earth!"

Chrissy Teigen and John Legend's courthouse wedding ceremony went down the day prior to the pair hopping on a flight to Italy for their glamorous, idyllic wedding celebration attended by the couple's loved ones. However, for their smaller, legally required American nuptials, it was something of an afterthought.

"We actually got married after going to a couple Fashion Week shows at Vera Wang, ironically who actually did my dress, but we got married at the courthouse right after," Teigen told E! News at the time. The timing was actually uniquely coincidental as Vera Wang was the designer for all three of the wedding dresses the stunning Teigen wore during her full-blown wedding ceremony in Lake Como. Teigen wore a different dress for the ceremony, the reception, and then the afterparty. "Every time I went in [to Vera Wang] for a fitting, I couldn't stop getting one," Teigen explained in her E! News interview. "It's just too pretty."

The Lake Como ceremony proved to be every bit as epic and beautiful as the couple could have hoped for. Their first dance was to "Ribbon in the Sky," sung live by Stevie Wonder at the event. Even the groom took the stage to sing his iconic ode to love, "All of Me," to his new wife — certainly a far cry from exchanging vows inside a Big Apple courthouse!