Viva Las Vegas!
To get married in Las Vegas, all you need is love, $55 and the hope that your union will last longer than Britney’s 55-hour first marriage. Over 120,000 licenses are granted every year from the Clark County Marriage Bureau, and the chapels cater for all tastes.
“By the power invested in me by the state of Nevada, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride.” Pastor Iann Schonken stands beside the white limousine and smiles as Karin and Nicolas from Sweden, the top half of their bodies outside the sunroof of the long vehicle, tenderly kiss each other. Travelling through the American Southwest on vacation, they have now been wed in Las Vegas, the world’s Mecca for fast marriages.
In less than ten minutes it is all over. The ceremony takes place at the “Little White Wedding Chapel”, in their “Drive Thru Tunnel of Vows”, a curved driveway with a roof that leads past the drive-up window. Whenever a car drives up to it, the pastor leans out of the window to conduct the ceremony. Occasionally he comes out and stands beside the vehicle.
The Little White Wedding Chapel conducts more than 500 wedding ceremonies per week, which is more than any other Las Vegas wedding chapel. Here celebrities like Joan Collins and Michael Jordan have promised their partners eternal love. And it was here that Britney Spears, after a night on the town, appeared in the small hours of the morning to be wed by Schonken to her childhood friend Jason Alexander, a marriage that was annulled after only 55 hours.
”But she was not drunk,” insists Charolette Richards, the owner of the chapel for the last 50 years. ”Of course it happens that our customers have taken a glass or two, but we do not marry those who are obviously intoxicated.”
The wedding industry is the third largest in Las Vegas, after gambling and entertainment. And most of its more than 100 wedding chapels are to be found on Las Vegas Boulevard, the gambling town’s aorta.
Once, Las Vegas was run by the mob. Nowadays its business is respectable, and huge sums are invested in the gigantic hotels combined with casinos that line the five kilometre long section of the boulevard called The Strip.
What once drew the mafia to town was the absence of laws against gambling in the state of Nevada, just as it was its absence of bureaucratic red tape that made it a popular place to get married. A marriage certificate is arranged in less than 15 minutes at The Clark County Marriage Bureau.
The bureau stays open from eight until midnight, every day except for Friday and Saturday, when it does not close at all. On popular wedding days, like Valentine’s Day, the line of waiting couples may reach the street outside.
Nowadays, most other American states have followed suit, no longer demanding blood tests and other lengthy procedures. But it is to Las Vegas that many still travel to get married. It is a tradition, a fun place to do it in, many think, and also inexpensive. Here a wedding may cost as little as $145 (about R1,000), whereas the average cost of an American wedding has risen to more than $20,000 (about R150,000).
“We escaped to Las Vegas,” say Verne and Rhonda from Canada, waiting for their certificate to be issued. ”Away from the family, the reception and everything else.”
But Colby and Jennifer from Colorado, who are next in line, have brought their families with them, and they are getting married at one of the big hotels in town.
In Las Vegas there are marriages for all tastes and wallets. You can do it simply, in your everyday clothes; traditionally, in a white wedding gown and a black tuxedo; adventurously, in a helicopter over the Grand Canyon; or luxuriously, for example on Terrazza Di Sogno, the terrace of The Bellagio, with the daily sound-and-light show of the hotel’s dancing fountains as the grand finale.
Some wedding chapels specialise in themed weddings. At Viva Las Vegas, which is next door to the Little White, you may choose Merlin or James Bond as your officiator. But Elvis is the most popular, and when Betty and Dave from Illinois step into their wedding hall, the King is on stage singing Love Me Tender, assisted by a leggy Las Vegas showgirl in plumes and a bikini outfit.
“We are not kids anymore, and we wanted to do something fun and different,” says Dave.
It is Ron Decar who acts the role of Elvis. Dressed in a white, one-piece outfit, covered in shiny silver rivets and open almost down to his navel, he holds a fake marriage ritual for the couple. “Do you promise to adopt each other’s hound dogs, to never wear your blue suede shoes in the rain, to be each other’s teddy bears and give each other a hunk a hunk of burning love?” And, finally: “By the power invested in me as The King I now pronounce you husband and wife.”
The legal marriage ceremony is performed, fast and efficiently, in a side room by pastor Daphne Mendelhof, who, unlike Ron, is empowered by the state of Nevada to conduct marriages. And she combines this job with running a rental business, where Viva Las Vegas customers can rent their wedding clothes.
“Some people complain about how quickly the wedding ceremony is over. But then I tell them that they should not have come to Las Vegas. Because here it is not about religion or anything like that. It is business, pure business.”
But Charolette Richards is not quite as cynical. ”I never get tired of weddings,” she says, although she stays open 24 hours a day and has more customers than anybody else in town.
Charolette is a pastor herself and she conducts many of the wedding ceremonies in her chapel. When Charolette first came to Las Vegas in the mid-fifties, she was a young mother of three who had just been deserted by her husband. Every day she walked with her little boys past the Little White Wedding Chapel, and soon the owner started to take an interest in her. He offered her a job in his chapel and a place to live, and when they later got married, she took over the business.
Today, Charolette has 65 employees. In two big side buildings there are more wedding halls, a beauty parlour, a rental business for wedding clothes and a photo studio. And in the parking lot behind the buildings are the long, white limousines that drive the couples between the chapel and their hotels.
“We can hold seven weddings simultaneously here. And, if you wish, we can take care of everything: pick you up at the hotel, take you to the court house, dress you up, marry you, take your pictures, and then drive you back to the hotel.”
But many of Little White’s customers are walk-ins, often arriving in their own vehicles and getting married shortly after. And when I interview Charolette in her air-conditioned office (outside it is 40°C in the shade), a group of Hell’s Angels roar in on their Harley-Davidson motorcycles.
Under her helmet, which is full of racy slogans, such as “Go On Go F*&k Yourself!”, the bride wears a veil. And she also wears a garter on top of her jeans, over her left thigh.
It is Charolette herself who conducts the wedding ceremony, while the Angels all sit on their motorbikes except for the bride, who has now taken off her helmet and stands beside the groom, so that they can exchange rings and kiss each other. Tears of happiness roll down her cheeks. And they both warmly embrace Charolette to thank her when it is over.
“Did you see how deeply in love they were?” says Charolette when the bikers have roared out of the tunnel of vows again. “And they believed in God too.”
Story by Barend Toet & Anders Ryman / TCS
Pix © Floris Leeuwenberg / TCS
