Lexy Burke
Entrepreneur Lexy Burke saw one thing missing from “Nash Vegas” — a wedding chapel.
Inspired by Las Vegas venues like Sure Thing Chapel and the famous Little White Wedding Chapel, Burke bought a modest home in Germantown and converted it to Nashville’s own White Velvet Chapel in March 2024. Since then, the chapel has hosted nearly 50 couples, including a few for a $25 New Year’s Eve ceremony.
Burke, also a content creator, paid for the venture with money from her other bridal-centric business, Ranch Hands Cowboylesque.
With at least 24 hours notice (the staff and officiant are on call), couples can enjoy a quick ceremony and a bubbly toast, and have their marriage license filed with up to three witnesses for a price starting at $333. That package is popular among those planning a larger wedding down the line, or who were married abroad and want to make it official in the States, Burke tells the Scene.
The space, with its simple white-heart decor, can hold up to 20 seated guests and squeeze an additional 10 in standing room. The most popular package, Burke says, is the 40-minute, $777 “Speechless.” That pays for a six-minute ceremony with an officiant and 10 guests, marriage license filing, Champagne glasses (bring your own Champagne), a first dance, mini cake cutting (add on $150 for a local baker to provide the cake) and time on the property for photos.
The largest package is the “Whole Lot in Love” — 60 minutes and 20 guests at $1,200. Couples can add amenities from the “à la carte menu,” including flowers, a charcuterie board and “behind the scenes” footage for social media. For $225, a vintage car (likely @thedollycarton) will be stationed in the front lawn for photos. Most couples leave the venue and go party on Broadway, or sit down for a nice dinner in Germantown. The city is the reception.
White Velvet also offers “Best Babes” ceremonies, in which a Dolly Parton impersonator leads participants in friendship vows.
A former wedding videographer, Burke knows the moments (and photos) that couples want.
White Velvet Chapel
“I know couples are a little nervous about, with eloping, they think, ‘We’re just going to go up there and say a couple words and then get kicked out,’” she says. “We offer different things so they can come in and experience the first dance, the cake-cutting moment — everything you think of when you think of a wedding.”
Some of White Velvet’s clients are country music lovers from abroad who are making a proper elopement to Music City. The chapel has also welcomed queer couples, people who met in Nashville and came back to tie the knot, locals and at least a few “ring by spring” participants. (That is, college couples looking to tie the knot before graduation.) They each meet with the on-staff officiant to personalize the vows, or they can bring their own officiants.
“Those younger couples who just moved to Nashville, brand-new jobs, brand-new house, new dog,” says Burke, “they’re getting hit with all of the life things, but want to get married.”
The nationwide average cost for a wedding in 2024 was $33,000 according to wedding planning website Zola. Even limiting expenses to a thousand-dollar day means huge savings for travel or a home, Burke notes.
“Don’t spend it all on one day,” she says. “Don’t do what I did.”
Burke also says the pendulum is swinging back toward a Gen-Z interest in eloping and away from the types of lavish weddings she and her friends and family threw in recent years.
“I think people are realizing that something more intimate doesn’t mean you’re not popular or cool or whatever,” she says. “To celebrate with the people you love in a more intimate setting is just so much better, because you can actually spend time with your family.”
Elopements and micro weddings will always be a thing, she says — to save money, or to keep a romantic secret.
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