Here come the brides

Dallas woos top-15 spot on new list of best places to get married

Let's get hitched.

Dallas is in line to catch the bouquet: The city ranks as the 13th best place to get married in the U.S. in 2026, according to a new study.

WalletHub's 2026 "Best Places to Get Married" report ranked 182 U.S. cities based on the average wedding costs; the number of venues, vendors, and services; and the number of activities and attractions in every city.

Dallas was bested by some of the usual suspects: Wedding-crazed Las Vegas, Nevada (No. 1); the Florida cities of Orlando (No. 2), Miami (No. 3), and Tampa (No. 5); and Atlanta, Georgia (No. 4). Dallas' Texas neighbors Austin (No. 6) and Houston (No. 7) also nabbed top 10 spots.

Based on the report's findings, Dallas' has the 16th best wedding facilities and services in the country, and its entertainment scene and tourism popularity helped rank No. 25 in the "activities and attractions" category.

Wedding planning website The Knot shows there are nearly 700 local wedding venues for couples to tour, including scenic gardens and fancy hotels downtown.

Weddings don't come cheap, and couples spend about $33,000 on average for their special day, according to The Knot. Dallas ranked No. 66 overall in the costs category out of all 182 U.S. cities in the report, proving that the city isn't as costly as other popular wedding destinations.

"Tying the knot is a huge commitment, and the wedding industry in 2025 was worth nearly $66.2 billion, down quite a bit from $78 billion a few years earlier," the report's author wrote.

With all the stress and time that goes into planning a wedding months or years in advance, it's no wonder that experienced wedding planners are in high demand for couples, the study says.

Other top Texas wedding destinations
Houston and Austin were the only two Texas cities to make the top 10 best places to get married, while San Antonio ranked 20th on the list.

Elsewhere in North Texas, Fort Worth ranked No. 44, while Plano (No. 82) and Arlington (No. 90) barely scraped into the top 100.

Five more Texas cities earned spots among the top 100: El Paso (No. 32), Lubbock (No. 74), Amarillo (No. 79), Laredo (No. 99), and Corpus Christi (No. 100).

The top 10 best places to get married in 2026 are:

No. 1 – Las Vegas, Nevada
No. 2 – Orlando, Florida
No. 3 – Miami, Florida
No. 4 – Atlanta, Georgia
No. 5 – Tampa, Florida
No. 6 – Austin, Texas
No. 7 – Houston, Texas
No. 8 – Fort Lauderdale, Florida
No. 9 – San Diego, California
No. 10 – Los Angeles, California

weddings rankings wallethub dallas

moms deserve better

Texas earns discouraging rank as 9th worst state for working moms

Working mother, best and worst states for working moms in 2026

Photo by Filipp Romanovski on Unsplash

Texas is far from the best state for working mothers, the study determined.

A new national study comparing the best and worst states for working mothers has painted a bleak picture for Texas. The Lone Star State earned a disappointing rank as the ninth worst state for working moms in America.

WalletHub's 2026 report compared the work-life balance, childcare, and professional opportunities for working mothers across all 50 states and the District of Columbia to determine the rankings. Metrics analyzed include the quality of daycares, childcare costs, school system quality, gender pay gaps, the share of families in poverty, female unemployment rates, a parental leave policy score, the average length of a woman's work week (in hours), and much more.

The top five best states for working mothers in America are all located in the Northeast, according to the study. Connecticut claimed the top spot nationally, and Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Vermont respectfully rounded out the top five.

Texas ranked as the 43rd "best" state overall. The bottom three worst states for working moms are Louisiana (No. 51), Alabama (No. 50), and New Mexico (No. 49).

Texas' best ranking was in the national comparison of states with the best median salaries for women, adjusted for the local cost of living. The state ranked No. 22 overall, but it earned middling and poor ranks across numerous additional categories.

The average length of a woman's work week in Texas is the fifth-worst in the country, and the state's female unemployment rate is the 11th worst nationally. The ratio of female executives to male executives in Texas is also the sixth-worst in the U.S.

Here's how WalletHub ranked life as a working mom in Texas in other categories, where a No. 1 rank is considered the best and No. 25 is considered average:

No. 26 – Childcare costs (adjusted for the median women’s salary)
No. 26 – Pediatricians per capita
No. 27 – Parental leave policy score
No. 33 – Daycare quality
No. 35 – Gender pay gap (women’s earnings as a percentage of men’s)
No. 38 – Percentage of single-mother families living in poverty

Unfortunately, Texas' poor livability for working mothers may not surprise some. Earlier this year, Texas was dubbed the No. 4 worst state for women in a separate study by WalletHub. It shouldn't be a stretch to expect better for women — who make up nearly half of the workforce — yet still get paid 82 percent of what men make per hour.

"The U.S. still has a lot of work to do when it comes to improving conditions for working moms, given the wage gap and the lack of representation women have in certain leadership positions," WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo said.

He said the best states for working mothers offer equitable pay, strong career advancement, strong parental leave policies, top notch school systems, and high quality childcare and healthcare.

wallethub texas reports women's equality

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moms deserve better

Texas earns discouraging rank as 9th worst state for working moms