Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner may have looked like two giddy young kids in love when they eloped in Vegas for a buzz-worthy wedding ceremony at the Little White Wedding Chapel, but it turns out that the nuptials weren’t actually all that impromptu.
The couple exchanged vows in an intimate ceremony officiated by an Elvis impersonator on Wednesday, May 1, immediately following the Billboard Music Awards. The “I do”s surprised fans who may have been anticipating the pair’s French wedding scheduled for this summer. Rest assured, however—the wedding in France will go on.
“Joe and Sophie are a couple that loves to have fun and live in the moment, and that’s exactly what getting hitched in Vegas was,” a source told Entertainment Tonight. “The couple does plan to have a more formal wedding with their family and friends, but this ceremony was just fun. Joe and Sophie are planning to get married in Paris later this year.”
But People reports that Jonas, 29, and Turner, 23, had more reason than simply spontaneity to get hitched in Vegas: It’s a smart legal move on their part.
“They had to get married in the States to make it legal, but the wedding is still in Europe,” a source told the publication. The US Embassy & Consulates in France states that in order for a marriage to be legally recognized, “at least one of the parties to be married must have resided in France for at least forty days immediately preceding the marriage.”
Since both Jonas and Turner will clearly not be living in France for forty days prior to their wedding, this means that they would have to be legally married elsewhere before their ceremony—say, Vegas.
Another smart step that the couple took in plotting their Vegas nuptials? Having Turner list her married name on the marriage certificate, so as to make the arduous name-changing process easier. (Without such record of the intended new surname, the legal steps to make the swap can get super complicated.) According to a copy of the document obtained by TMZ, Turner will go by “Sophie Belinda Jonas” postwedding. (Hilariously, the name of the officiant listed reads “Reverend Elvis Presley.”)
On Thursday when the pair stepped out together in Los Angeles, Turner donned a telltale sign of her excitement at officially becoming a Mrs. Jonas: a white sash looped over a bridal white hoodie with the words “just married” proudly displayed across her chest.
Earlier this year, in an interview with Rolling Stone, Turner explained that meeting Jonas was what ultimately changed her mind about marriage and the whole shebang.
“I was fully preparing myself to be single for the rest of my life,” she said. “I think once you’ve found the right person, you just know. I feel like I’m much older a soul than I am in age. I feel like I’ve lived enough life to know. I’ve met enough guys to know—I’ve met enough girls to know. I don’t feel 22. I feel like 27, 28.”
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