LAS VEGAS - They came to Vegas to get rich quick, not to get
hitched quick. But after dinner on Monday night at the Sahara
Hotel buffet, Dave Baker wondered aloud whether his girlfriend
of five months wanted to get married before they hit the blackjack
tables.
Less than an hour later, Baker and Donna Rivendell of Atlanta
were at the Clark County Courthouse, flashing their identifications
at a clerk and forking over $55. They walked off with a valid
marriage license and into a bevy of pitchmen waiting on the
sidewalk to insist that their wedding chapels offer the lowest
prices and friendliest service.
"Dang, that was easy," says Baker, 22, an unemployed Web site
designer. "Isn't Vegas the greatest?"
There are several states where the newlywed Bakers could have
obtained a marriage license without a waiting period or blood
test. But as a cultural cliché, the quickie wedding remains
a durable Vegas symbol. It's an image furthered by the drunken
elopements of countless movie and TV sitcom characters -Friends'
Ross and Rachel, for example - as well as the real-life dramatics
of Britney Spears' nuptials last weekend and subsequent annulment.
But the norm is a bit different, several chapel owners say.
A wedding like Spears' - she married a childhood friend on the
spur of the moment - is unusual. Most involve couples with some
romantic relationship and are planned at least a few days or
weeks in advance, says Jamie Richards, owner of the Viva Las
Vegas Wedding Chapel.
"I hate it when something like (the Spears wedding) happens,
because it makes it sound like Vegas weddings are just a dime
a dozen," he says. "Yes, they're easy to do, but they're not
meaningless. The people who are in this business are still in
this business to marry people. It's not a joke."
No, it's a big business. More than 120,000 marriage licenses
were issued by Clark County in 2003, and an estimated 1 million
visitors came to southern Nevada to attend a wedding, either
theirs or someone else's. The courthouse is open for licenses
every night until midnight and 24 hours on holidays.
Couples can get married here at a drive-up window while seated
in their cars. They can be married by a Dr. Spock look-alike
or by an Elvis impersonator. Many proper churches are available,
too, as well as elegant, traditional chapels. Most take walk-ins,
and some weddings are as cheap as $200.
Quickie Vegas weddings are typically the province of celebrities
who are trying to fly under the radar of the paparazzi. Other
couples who run off to Vegas are often avoiding their own set
of meddlers.
Joseph Repinski of Milwaukee married Dana Jones, both 39,
on Monday largely to avoid the family feuding that often accompanies
big weddings. She wore a white dress and veil. He wore a simple
black suit. There were no witnesses.
Repinski acknowledges that his mother was upset, but he says
a large church wedding would have been "what she wanted, not
what I wanted."
Others rush off to get married before they start military
service or head to war. Christopher Greene, 19, of Lima, Ohio,
married Tara Thomas, also 19, on Monday because he's enlisting
in the Navy and being shipped off to Guam on Thursday. Now she's
eligible as a military spouse for a range of benefits, Greene
says.
Despite scenes like the one on Friends in which Ross and Rachel
are so drunk they hardly remember the next day that they have
wed, some ministers refuse to perform a marriage when the partners
seem incapable of understanding what they're doing.
"I've had people who are so inebriated they can't even stand
up," says Greg Smith, owner of the Little Church of the West,
at 61 years old the city's oldest chapel and site of celebrity
nuptials from Betty Grable and Harry James' to Richard Gere
and Cindy Crawford's. "I don't give them a field sobriety test,
but obviously if someone is incoherent, you can't do their wedding."
Limo driver Jeff Rawley recalls picking up a twice-divorced,
obviously drunken couple at a hotel and taking them to the courthouse
for their license along with two witnesses the couple had met
that day in a bar. The would-be bride sobered up at the courthouse
and refused to sign the required documents. The jilted groom
walked off in a rage.
Charolette Richards, who owns the Little White Chapel, where
Spears was married, says she occasionally will try to talk a
couple she believes to be doomed out of the decision to wed.
Her favorite quickie-wedding story, however, is the one about
the couple in their 60s who had been together more than 40 years.
They were in Las Vegas and decided it was time to get hitched.
" 'We ran away from our kids and grandkids,' " Richards says
they told her. " 'They think we're already married.' " "Dang,
that was easy," says Baker, 22, an unemployed Web site designer.
"Isn't Vegas the greatest?"
There are several states where the newlywed Bakers could have
obtained a marriage license without a waiting period or blood
test. But as a cultural cliché, the quickie wedding remains
a durable Vegas symbol. It's an image furthered by the drunken
elopements of countless movie and TV sitcom characters -Friends'
Ross and Rachel, for example - as well as the real-life dramatics
of Britney Spears' nuptials last weekend and subsequent annulment.
But the norm is a bit different, several chapel owners say.
A wedding like Spears' - she married a childhood friend on the
spur of the moment - is unusual. Most involve couples with some
romantic relationship and are planned at least a few days or
weeks in advance, says Jamie Richards, owner of the Viva Las
Vegas Wedding Chapel.
"I hate it when something like (the Spears wedding) happens,
because it makes it sound like Vegas weddings are just a dime
a dozen," he says. "Yes, they're easy to do, but they're not
meaningless. The people who are in this business are still in
this business to marry people. It's not a joke."
No, it's a big business. More than 120,000 marriage licenses
were issued by Clark County in 2003, and an estimated 1 million
visitors came to southern Nevada to attend a wedding, either
theirs or someone else's. The courthouse is open for licenses
every night until midnight and 24 hours on holidays.
Couples can get married here at a drive-up window while seated
in their cars. They can be married by a Dr. Spock look-alike
or by an Elvis impersonator. Many proper churches are available,
too, as well as elegant, traditional chapels. Most take walk-ins,
and some weddings are as cheap as $200.
Quickie Vegas weddings are typically the province of celebrities
who are trying to fly under the radar of the paparazzi. Other
couples who run off to Vegas are often avoiding their own set
of meddlers.
Joseph Repinski of Milwaukee married Dana Jones, both 39,
on Monday largely to avoid the family feuding that often accompanies
big weddings. She wore a white dress and veil. He wore a simple
black suit. There were no witnesses.
Repinski acknowledges that his mother was upset, but he says
a large church wedding would have been "what she wanted, not
what I wanted."
Others rush off to get married before they start military
service or head to war. Christopher Greene, 19, of Lima, Ohio,
married Tara Thomas, also 19, on Monday because he's enlisting
in the Navy and being shipped off to Guam on Thursday. Now she's
eligible as a military spouse for a range of benefits, Greene
says.
Despite scenes like the one on Friends in which Ross and Rachel
are so drunk they hardly remember the next day that they have
wed, some ministers refuse to perform a marriage when the partners
seem incapable of understanding what they're doing.
"I've had people who are so inebriated they can't even stand
up," says Greg Smith, owner of the Little Church of the West,
at 61 years old the city's oldest chapel and site of celebrity
nuptials from Betty Grable and Harry James' to Richard Gere
and Cindy Crawford's. "I don't give them a field sobriety test,
but obviously if someone is incoherent, you can't do their wedding."
Limo driver Jeff Rawley recalls picking up a twice-divorced,
obviously drunken couple at a hotel and taking them to the courthouse
for their license along with two witnesses the couple had met
that day in a bar. The would-be bride sobered up at the courthouse
and refused to sign the required documents. The jilted groom
walked off in a rage.
Charolette Richards, who owns the Little White Chapel, where
Spears was married, says she occasionally will try to talk a
couple she believes to be doomed out of the decision to wed.
Her favorite quickie-wedding story, however, is the one about
the couple in their 60s who had been together more than 40 years.
They were in Las Vegas and decided it was time to get hitched.
" 'We ran away from our kids and grandkids,' " Richards says
they told her. " 'They think we're already married.' "
