Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Wedding Crashers
Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn showed the world how to do it. It's even
more fun in Vegas, and you don't have to pick up wedding guests, lead the
conga line, or pretend you're a distant cousin. Simply go to any of the
wedding chapels listed in this topic, and ask the couple of the hour,
politely, if they'd mind if you watched their ceremony. Most are happy to
oblige. You won't have any problem finding a wedding to watch in this,
the wedding capital of the world, and trust me—it's a sweetly kitschy,
intriguing, usually moving way to spend the afternoon or evening. Don't
feel shy about asking; I found that every couple I approached was happy
and proud to have an outsider witness this important event.
The funkiest weddings will be at the
Viva Las Vegas Chapel
(1205 Las
Vegas Blvd. S.;
%
800/574-4450 or 702/384-0771; www.vivalasvegas.com;
basic ceremony
$
150; daily 9am-10pm),
which specializes in production
weddings (and also has a very helpful, friendly staff who will tip you off
as to when the most unusual weddings are taking place). I sat through
three here and used up an entire little handy pack of Kleenex. My favorite
was the French couple who giggled their way into the chapel dressed as
Marilyn Monroe and Elvis (in costumes lent by the chapel), only to break
down in heartfelt tears when the Elvis minister asked the groom if he'd
give his bride a daily “hunka hunka burning love.” (I have a feeling they
might have misinterpreted what he was asking.) I was the only witness to
that wedding, but I was made to feel just as welcome at the next one, a
fairly large affair with forty guests. The bride and groom drove through the
wide doors of the chapel in a pink Cadillac for a more elaborate (and
expensive) Elvis ceremony. Third was a traditional ceremony for a man who
looked to be AARP-age (to put it politely) and a young woman from Brazil
who couldn't have been older than 22. That was a somber, somewhat
strange affair, and kept my head buzzing for days afterward with questions
that wouldn't have been polite to ask. But being there in the midst of such
a dramatic if discomfiting event made me feel like I had landed in the mid-
dle of some mystery movie.
Really, is there any activity more “Vegas” than a 15-minute wedding?
Give it a whirl.
show; the tour is free) has one of those, too, but because it's apparently the law in
Vegas that everything must be jumbo-sized and dazzling, theirs is a 500,000-gal-
lon tank filled with 400 fish of 150 species. It is, in effect, a mini-aquarium, and
every weekday at 3:15pm sharp, the men and women who work full-time here to
keep all these fish healthy offer a tour of their fishy facility that's surprisingly
scholarly.
