Theme weddings all the rage in Las Vegas
National Correspondent
973 words
15 March 2001
LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - Does your dream wedding include being married in a fake graveyard by the Grim Reaper and spending your first night of married bliss in a mock grave for a bed? If so, Ron Decar is your man.
Elaborate "theme" nuptials are the hottest trend in the Vegas wedding industry and Decar is high priest of the trend.
A man of many parts, Decar has married people dressed as the Phantom of the Opera, Merlin the Magician, the Godfather, Dracula and Mr. Spock from "Star Trek." Then there are the kings he impersonates - King Tut, King Arthur, and of course the king of kings in Vegas, Elvis Presley.
"I have taken the Las Vegas wedding to a new level by bringing show business values to the wedding business. I've changed the face of weddings for ever," said Decar, founder, owner and operator of the Viva Las Vegas Wedding Chapel and theme motel, who has a keen sense of his place in history.
Decar is doing 300 weddings a month. Apart from the Elvis wedding, his most popular production is probably the Gothic ceremony, for which the chapel is decorated like a cemetery with tombstones and wrought iron railings, the minister rises out of a coffin through a cloud of theatrical fog dressed as the Grim Reaper and Dracula plays the organ.
"That one is huge on Halloween but we get requests for it all the year round. Brides dye their wedding gowns black and we give them a bouquet of black flowers," he said.
The happy couple can then retire for the night to the Gothic bridal chamber, wash in a coffin-shaped bath and go to sleep in a graveyard bed under a headstone reading "Till Death Do Us Part."
Why couples should want to begin their married life on such a macabre note is a mystery. Decar's only answer: "It's fun and takes all the stress out of getting married."
A LAS VEGAS MAINSTAY
Weddings have been big business in Vegas for decades due to the state's liberal licensing regulations. Anyone over 18 can get a Nevada marriage license on the spot for a $35 fee (24 pounds). No blood tests, no waiting periods required.
At the Little White Chapel just down the street from Viva Las Vegas, the basic wedding ceremony costs $40. You want a bit more fancy? The "Limo Lovers Lip Locker," which includes flowers for the bride, a garter and two Polaroid photographs, is $60. For $100, they will throw in a video as well.
Last year, Vegas hosted 122,000 weddings in its 30-plus chapels, up from 115,000 the previous year. They ranged from the basic, cheap, drive-through ceremony where the bride and groom do not have to get out of their vehicle, to stunt ceremonies aboard helicopters and hot air balloons.
"About 3 percent of visitors tell us their primary purpose coming here is to attend a wedding. In 1999, that worked out at just over 1 million of our 33.8 million visitors," said Kevin Bagger of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.
An estimated 12 percent of Vegas weddings are between foreign nationals, with Germans heading the list, followed by Japanese, Britons and Mexicans.
The average visitor to Vegas stays 4.7 days and spends $630, excluding gambling expenses. That means weddings in 2000 pumped an estimated $639 million into the local economy.
The fastest-growing trend is for couples to hold ceremonies reaffirming their marriage vows after five, 10 or 20 years of wedded bliss. Decar said couples renewing their vows accounted for more than half his business.
He charges $600 to $700 for most productions, depending on how elaborate they are. For the Egyptian wedding, for example, the bride is carried to the altar by two male slaves while two goddesses fan the groom. Extra actors cost $100 apiece.
AN ELVIS WEDDING
On this day, at 2 p.m., Dusty McGee and his bride-to-be, Wendy, both teachers from Laporte, Texas, showed up for their Elvis ceremony along with their two wedding guests.
Decar strode to the platform decked out in full Elvis regalia and launched into "Fools Rush In" as Wendy made a short trip down the aisle.
"Dear Friends, the name is Elvis. I'm alive and well and here today to exchange the wedding vows of Dusty and Wendy," he intones.
Wendy weeps silently as Decar croons "Love Me Tender," the second of three songs he will perform during the 15-minute ceremony. The couple exchange rings and Elvis winds up.
"Do you agree to adopt each others' hound dogs, not to wear your blue suede shoes in the rain? Then, by the powers vested in me, the king, I pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss. Thank you, thank you very much."
The legal act of marriage takes place in the next room, where the Rev. Daphne Mendeloff of the Eternal Hope Ministry sees the forms signed, sealed and delivered. Does she think that an Elvis wedding trivialises the state of holy matrimony?
"Not at all. Most of the weddings I see here are not the first go-around for the people involved," Mendeloff said.
"They did the big, fancy wedding with the white dresses and bridesmaids their first time. Now they just want to have fun," she said. In a country where 50 percent of first marriages end in divorce, there is a lot of fun to be had.
After the ceremony, Dusty says he is one satisfied customer.
"That was a lot of fun, good stuff," he says, before he and his bride step into a white limousine and speed off into the afternoon haze to begin their married life.