How to plan a Las Vegas wedding: Pop-up desert ceremony or Elvis theme?
Getting hitched in Las Vegas could now involve a real trailer hitch. If you want a dream June wedding but don’t want to go to a church or even a kitschy wedding chapel, Victoria Hogan stands ready to help by offering pop-up ceremonies with her customized, pink trailer.
The idea behind Flora Pop is to allow couples to move the big day to the big outdoors.
“I never wanted to be stationary,†Hogan says. “I cut out the middleman completely. I’m the officiant, and I’m the florist.â€
Hogan, who has a background in landscaping, bought the vintage teardrop-shaped trailer to use as a roadside flower shop until she realized “it’s really too hot in summer.â€
Options include a no-frills wedding for the location of your choice or a wide-open spaces setting, which includes the trailer, flowers, donuts and a Champagne toast.
Desert backdrops in Nevada and California are most popular for pop-up weddings, Hogan says. Prices (she doesn’t want to quote them) vary according to what couples want.
As the so-called wedding capital of the world, Las Vegas has long catered to couples from around the globe, many of whom opt to marry in one of the city’s dozens of wedding chapels.
Elvis lookalikes are always popular, providing the entertainment by crooning two or three romantic songs. Suggested venues for an Elvis wedding include the Graceland Wedding Chapel and Viva Las Vegas Wedding Chapel, both in downtown Las Vegas.
One of the city’s oldest chapels, A Little White Wedding Chapel in downtown, says it has hosted tens of thousands of weddings since it opened in the early 1950s.
It’s well-known for its canopy-covered Tunnel of Love in which couples get married without leaving their cars.
The chapel’s current owner, 81-year-old Charolette Richards, has officiated weddings there for decades. She told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that, somewhere around 100,000, she lost track of how many ceremonies she has performed.
Clark County, Nev. — for which Las Vegas is the county seat — claims to issue more marriage licenses than any other county in the country. The county clerk’s website notes that 80,738 licenses were issued in 2014.
For a good introduction to getting married in Las Vegas — from legalities to specialty chapels — go to LasVegas.com‘s wedding planning page.
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