Where should I get married in Las Vegas?

January 12, 2005 8:27 PM

Where should I get married in Las Vegas? [More Inside]

I just got engaged (literally, about two hours ago) and we were already planning to be in Vegas for a friends wedding, so we decided to kill two birds with one stone. There have been some awesome threads about what to do in Vegas, so we already have the trip planned out, but the wedding is another story. We will be there the 9th - 14th of March, is it too still too cold for an outdoor ceremony? Are the little chapels awful? We are staying at the Luxor, and their chapel pictures look nice, but a little fancy. We are both very laid back and don't want anything too expensive since this will be a wedding / honeymoon combo. An Elvis wedding is not out of the question, either. There will be at most 4 guests, so I suppose the smaller the better. We just asked the other wedding party and they are not worried we will be 'stealing their thunder'. Any help will be very appreciated.

posted by dual_action to travel & transportation around Las Vegas, NV (16 answers total)

Congratulations!! Whatever you do, please show pictures!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 8:39 PM on January 12, 2005 [1 favorite]

Pick your favorite and follow in their footsteps. I would go for Graceland myself just for the cool Vegas kitsch.

oh, and, um, congratulations, good luck and all that.
posted by geekyguy at 9:02 PM on January 12, 2005

There's always the drive-through, if by "casual" you mean "don't have to wear pants."
posted by rushmc at 9:31 PM on January 12, 2005

Congrats & best wishes! My starter marriage was here. (warning - awful website with sound).

It was February wedding, and I was able to do outdoor photos in a sleeveless gown without freezing to death.

It's a good choice if you don't want to go full on Elvis kitch - it's smaller than it looks, so 4 people attending won't look out of place. An extra added geek bonus is the live web camera. Prices aren't bad, especially if you do a weekday wedding.

Email's in my profile if you have any other questions. Have fun!
posted by Space Kitty at 10:37 PM on January 12, 2005

I got married in Vegas less than two months ago! My Aussie partner and myself decided the big international family wedding was too expensive, so we planned a fun wedding just for us. We went to The Little White Wedding Chapel (which is where Britney had her first quickie wedding - do you need any better endorsement?). Actually it was really, really fun. Photos available here. We went with the "a la carte" option, to which we added Elvis, twelve photographs, and the live Internet broadcast. We were really happy with everything. It was super busy that day so we ran about an hour late, but without any guests we weren't fussed. (Folks on my blog were freaking about why the live feed wasn't up yet; pretty funny.) Elvis joined us and basically hung out with us the whole time since he didn't have anything else to do. The pictures aren't all Glamour Shots or anything, but I think we look pretty good. When we got to the actual ceremony, we were both kinda freaking out. Elvis calmed us down and helped us decide what we were going to do. He ended up walking me down the aisle and giving me away, and at the start of the ceremony he sang "I Can't Help Falling in Love With You." Then we had our (totally secular) ceremony with the way cool minister, and as soon as we kissed Elvis busted into "Viva Las Vegas" and we danced like fools. Then we got to say some personal messages for the folks watching at home. Altogether it cost us less than $500 and I can't imagine how it might have been better. They leave the Internet stream up for a month so we were able to watch it and archive a copy. (That's why we didn't bother paying for a separate video. They just use the same video camera mounted on the wall, and the quality of the web feed was surprisingly good.) It's relatively short; I could probably put it online if you want to see what the service was like. In summation: I really, really recommend them!

Also note: While chatting with Elvis during our wait, he mentioned how happy he was that we *weren't* doing the outdoor wedding. He said the night before he'd done a "Cadilla convertible" service for a couple that wanted to get married while driving down the strip, and by the time it was over the bride was practically blue. It gets *cold* in the desert at night. So if you're going to do the outdoors thing, make sure it's during the day.

E-mail's in my profile if you want anymore information on the process (including getting the license). Congratulations!
posted by web-goddess at 1:29 AM on January 13, 2005 [2 favorites]

My brother-in-law and his wife were wed in one of the big hotel/casino's wedding chapels. (Treasure Island, specifically. An indoor chapel, not the extravagent pirate ship thing.) While it was lovely, I thought it was lacking the whole Vegas cheese thing and seemed strangely... typical. Plus the "package" they booked, although it was a quick 10-minute ceremony with what I thought of as limited frills, was around $1400. My romantic notion of "Vegas wedding" includes high high doses of Cheese and Cheap.
posted by ferociouskitty at 4:39 AM on January 13, 2005

These are all wonderful suggestions, thank you so much! I had a feeling the hotel chapel would be a little sterile for us. I will certainly email if I have any questions, thanks for the offers!
posted by dual_action at 6:05 AM on January 13, 2005

The wife and I got married out in Red Rock Canyon... which was lovely. (We didn't have a terribly large wedding, either.) It's about 20 minutes from the strip, right outside of town. I don't know about the weather in Vegas that time of year, but I imagine it'll be warm and sunny, just like it always is.

It's kinda dorky, but we actually set the whole thing up through lasvegasweddings.com -- the provided the minister, photographer, scouted the location, all that kind of stuff. They may have other suggestions...
posted by ph00dz at 6:09 AM on January 13, 2005

I also was married in the Little White Chapel at their drive-up window and didn't have to get out of the car the whole time. It's not for everyone, but it was in expensive, fast and fun. A few things to know about getting married in Vegas
- you can get married 24/7 but the Clark County Courthouse closes at midnight [or at least it used to] so getting the license, which you need to do beforehand, needs to have at least some planning involved with it. Try not to be horrified that the wedding license is just a half sheet of paper, requires no identification, and gets filled out with golf pencils. Ask the clerk how many other couples have been married in Vegas already this year for a jaw-dropping number.
- that said, Vegas is made for weddings and it's pretty easy just to open the yellow pages and see your whole range of options laid out for you in a way that's not the inTARweb trying to sell you something, it's a bit more egalitarian.
- we had friends who just did a really nice hotel wedding and spent all their cash on a suite at the Venetian where we all hung out afterwards and then all went to see Circque du Soleil's O afterwards. With a small wedding party you are much more flexible for doing some really creative stuff.
Have fun and congratulations!
posted by jessamyn at 6:23 AM on January 13, 2005

I renewed my vows in the Excalibur chapel. It was very nice, and you can walk to it from the Luxor without going outside at all. You can even rent "medieval" costumes if that's your thing.

We looked into Elvis...it adds something like $400 onto any package, so we skipped it.
posted by JoanArkham at 7:10 AM on January 13, 2005

We got married by Elvis at Viva Las Vegas and had a great time. They even had a live stream online so all our friends and family could watch, even though they couldn't be there.

Congrats and have fun!
posted by frykitty at 7:33 AM on January 13, 2005

I'll second the Viva Las Vegas. I got hitched there 4 years ago, and saw my friend get married there last summer. Really easy to set up, we did all the arrangements pool side the morning of. Fairly reasonable prices for Elvis, especially for the basic 2 or 3 song package.

The courthouse is half the fun of getting married. We literally spent 15 minutes in the court house (quickest governmental administration ever,) and got to hear such conversational gems as this.

Man chuckling softly while looking over soon to be wife's shoulder as she fills out her form: "I didn't know that you were married 4 times"

Woman replies: "Don't you laugh honey, this one is going to work cuz i got you!"

Good luck and have a blast, there are few things better than being dressed to the nine and hitting vegas with a posse of friends and family.
posted by lips at 10:46 AM on January 13, 2005

I got married at the Graceland and wholeheartedly recommend it.
posted by maniactown at 10:57 AM on January 13, 2005

My wife and I tried to get married in Vegas at 4am on a weeknight (during a 12 hour stop over).
Be aware that you will need some sort of courthouse documentation, and this is only available 24 hours on weekends.
My hotel concierge was very helpful, but couldn't get us hitched before our 9am onward flight.
I strongly endorse the idea of skipping a big wedding!
posted by bystander at 2:15 PM on January 13, 2005

I'll be there 3/14, let me buy you a drink!
posted by esch at 3:53 PM on January 13, 2005

Thank you all again for the advice and congratulations! I don't know what we would have done without all of the details to help us make up our minds. After much back and forth and some careful explanations to parents, we have decided on the Viva Las Vegas Weddings Elvis Special for the first weekend in April (sorry, esch!). I will probably be putting up a link in my profile to some pictures, the video, etc.

Thanks again!
posted by dual_action at 8:11 AM on January 16, 2005