For couples looking to exchange vows someplace with a history—or hold a truly rocking reception—many of the South’s music landmarks moonlight as wedding venues. These five beloved spots offer something for every kind of musically inclined pair. (Just don’t expect to outbid a touring star for that coveted weekend booking.)
Georgia Theatre
Athens, Georgia
Along Athens’ Music Walk of Fame, few facades are as iconic as the Georgia Theatre’s red-lettered marquee. Plan a wedding there and they’ll put your name in lights, hosting you and yours inside the art deco–style theater on a stage graced by everyone from homegrown favorite R.E.M to Taylor Swift in her country era. Plus, the rooftop offers a full-service bar and kitchen and sweeping views of downtown for kicking back—or keeping the party going—post-ceremony.
Luckenbach Texas
Fredericksburg, Texas
Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson sang about going back to the basics of love at Luckenbach in their eponymous 1977 hit, and today, the nine-acre hamlet remains as perfectly unbuttoned as venues come. Hold a true Texas shindig in the rustic Dancehall, or pull a Jerry Jeff Walker: “He got married right here at the bar,” says wedding coordinator Taylor Brown. Come nighttime, dance under the light of a preternaturally bright moon, Luckenbach’s longtime romantic inspiration (and a benefit of Dark Sky territory). “Our proprietor, Hondo Crouch, wrote poems about it,” Brown says.
Preservation Hall
New Orleans
While this history-steeped spot boasts jazz concerts over 360 nights a year, it’s possible to book it out for a soulful celebration with some seventy of your nearest and dearest. An anchor of the French Quarter since 1961, Preservation Hall remains a cornerstone of New Orleans’ melting pot of musical influence. Walk the aisle to a six-piece brass band, then take to the streets for a traditional second line procession before ending with cocktails in an intimate courtyard of jewel-box greenery.
Ryman Auditorium
Nashville
Pack your guests into the hallowed wood pews of a true bucket-list venue and bask in over 130 years of country music history. At the original home of the Grand Ole Opry, one can host everything from a ceremony to a seated dinner on the very same stage that Hank Williams received not one, but six encores at his 1949 debut. If celebrating with the ghosts of country stars past isn’t enough, exclusive backstage tours sweeten the deal.
The Mulehouse
Columbia, Tennessee
Change up your churchhouse vows by taking the stage at The Mulehouse, which transformed a 1930s Baptist church into a world-class performance center. In the Main Theatre, over two hundred guests can mingle under its vaulted ceiling and fourteen massive stained-glass windows. “They’re all original to the building,” says Amy Fish, Mulehouse’s director of events, “and they’re why we’re called ‘the crown jewel of Columbia.’” With state-of-the-art lighting and sound design at your disposal, it’s a chapel made for music lovers.
Grace Roberts, a 2025 intern at Garden & Gun, grew up in Pennington, New Jersey, and graduated from the University of St Andrews.