I was wondering just as Las Vegas is famous for it’s casinos, there also seems to be many wedding chapels and ‘drive-thru’ weddings throughout the city? Is it just a major industry in the city like the casinos? Or are there other political, social, historical reasons for the presence of so many places to get married in the city? What’s the origin of such a phenomenon etc?
You used to be able to get a marriage license immediately in Nevada, hence, elopers from places near and far would go to Vegas to get married on short notice. I believe they’ve recently changed the marriage license requirements so it’s not so easy anymore, but that’s why so many marriage chapels are there.
Interestingly, Reno used to be known as the place to go for a relatively quick divorce. Of course, this was when other states had much more restrictive and difficult divorce laws and I haven’t seen a serious reference to going to Reno for that reason in at least 25 years.
AFAIK the only recent change to the availbility of marriage licenses has been the Las Vegas Marriage Bureau closing on 3rd shift, ie you have to show up before 11pm or wait until the next morning.
Nevada has, and pretty much always had, a six-week residency requirement (and liberal grounds) for someone to file for divorce. Every other state required at least 3 months residency, often much longer. A number of resorts designed for 6-week vacations popped up around Reno and became quite popular for wealthy types who wanted to enjoy a little horseback riding, skiing and gambling while waiting for their “residency” to become official.
By contrast, Las Vegas wasn’t a great place for a 6-week vacation, but its 24/7, instant gratification, no waiting period, entertainment-centric atmosphere was ideal for couples in a hurry to combine a wedding and a honeymoon weekend.
Because for many folks marriage is just another form of gambling.
Roll them bones!
There are so many wedding chapels because everybody needs to see, at some point in their life, a shit-faced bride, wearing a strapless wedding gown with a bra that isn’t, holding a $25 bouquet of daisies and a gallon-sized margarita displaying her biker tats to everybody in the casino as she and her currently-unemployed husband head off to the “All-You-Can-Gobble Buffet Experience.”
On a serious note though, Las Vegas is a good and theoretically inexpensive destination for a wedding for people who have relatives all over the country, but otherwise live in a hick town themselves. There are lots of cheap hotels and flights from everywhere, plus it’s a good ‘destination wedding’ location that doesn’t necessarily need to be trashy.
Case in point, a few years ago, we had some friends who had moved to Lubbock, Texas who were getting married and had relatives coming in from as far away as Ireland. If they held the wedding in Lubbock, the only people who would have come would have been a few local friends and perhaps their parents. But, by holding in in Vegas, lots of people were able to get cheap flights and make their wedding part of a larger vacation. I know that’s what we did. They had it in a reception hall off the strip that wasn’t much to look at on the outside, but the inside was a beautifully planted garden in a climate controlled setting that looked better than most other indoor or outdoor wedding I had attended, and they told us the place was absolutely dirt cheap.