80,000 happy yeses a year in the middle of the desert – Why did Las Vegas become the wedding capital of the world?

The territory of the state of Nevada primarily generated income as a mining region, but at the beginning of the last century there was a need to become a tourist magnet. Las Vegas, the city that never sleeps, was built for this reason in the middle of the desert with its hotels, casinos, clubs and the promise of non-stop entertainment and glamour. Since Los Angeles is only a four-hour drive away, they expected to attract a lot of people from the city.

For this, of course, every available trick had to be used. This is where the idea came from, that if there are already so many hotels in the city, it could become an ideal wedding venue. A 1931 law amendment made it possible to get married in Clark County with considerable ease compared to the rules of other American states.

While in other places it was typically necessary to wait at least three days after submitting the official request for marriage – this was to prevent couples from saying yes in an intoxicated state as a result of an ill-considered decision – in Las Vegas, the permission was granted immediately, or more precisely in about ten minutes. The newspapers of the time also wrote about this, saying that the regulation paved the way for many spoiled, short-lived marriages.

World War Romance

Of course, a law amendment alone was not enough to achieve success. In the pre-internet years, it often took a long time for news to spread, and it did in this case as well. First, the rich and the celebrities of Los Angeles got a taste of the lifestyle of a Vegas wedding, and after these weddings were in the newspapers, it became more and more tempting for young couples to say the happy (?) yes to each other in Las Vegas.

However, the final big push was given by II. given by World War II. While at the end of the 1930s, roughly two to three thousand weddings were held in the city a year, by 1941 and 1942, this number had risen to over twenty thousand. America entered World War II. to World War I, they started conscripting soldiers, and many lovers decided that before going to the front, they would connect their lives with their love and get married. As quickly as possible, preferably in Las Vegas.

The party started with Sinatra

Despite what has happened, Las Vegas has not considered itself the wedding capital of the world since the 1940s, but since 1953. This is due to two reasons. This year, the megastar became a permanent performer at the Sands Frank Sinatra, whose name attracted crowds to the state of Nevada, and this was the year when the now defunct, but then popular London Daily Herald referred to Vegas as the wedding capital of the world for the first time in the world. The city welcomed the sign, accepted it and made it its own.

In 1965, a lot of men wanted a flash wedding in Vegas just to avoid the draft and not have to go to fight in Vietnam, but Lyndon B. Johnson quickly closed this loophole with a presidential decree.

More and more celebrities have decided to connect their lives with their love in Vegas. Only in the Little White Chapel have people like

• Paul Newman and JoAnn Woodward;
• Rita Hayworth and Dick Haymes;
• Frank Sinatra and Mia Farrow;
• Elvis Presley and Priscilla Presley;

but here he married twice Mickey Rooney too. The place is still legendary, it was here that he ended his life later

• Bruce Willis and Demi Moore;
• Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez;
• Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner;

and already married here Michael Jordan and Britney Spears too. These marriages all further cemented Las Vegas’ reputation as the wedding capital and attracted more couples.

Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman’s wedding cake in Vegas (Photo: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Rita Hayworth and Dick Haymes get married in a private room at the Sands Hotel in Vegas (Photo: Getty Images)

Frank Sinatra and Mia Farrow cut the cake at their Vegas wedding (Photo: Keystone/Getty Images)

Priscilla Presley and Elvis Presley’s wedding in Vegas on May 1, 1967 (Photo: Getty Images)

As a result of the craze, the Clark County Marriage Bureau operated an office located at the Vegas train station during busy periods for decades so that couples arriving in the city could obtain their marriage licenses on the spot. Although the railway station office ceased to exist at the beginning of the millennium, it was later replaced by an office located at the airport, which is still in operation during peak periods.

The Age of Light and what came after

The popularity of Las Vegas kept growing, practically nothing could stop it, and along with the popularity of the city, the number of weddings there also increased. The heyday can be roughly dated to the second half of the nineties and the beginning of the 2000s: during this period, the number of marriages concluded in Vegas typically exceeded one hundred thousand per year.

Valentine’s Day is always very busy, with up to two thousand couples tying the knot in one day in the city, but also special dates like April 4, 2004 (04.04.04), July 2007 7th (07.07.07) or the latest was the second and twenty-second of February 2022. On these days, the number of affirmative votes exceeded a thousand.

The industry does not stand still. In addition to the more than 75 independent chapels, newlyweds can also get married at the wedding venues of hotels and event centers, and the cheapest flash weddings with the low-cost service are available at some locations for as little as one hundred dollars. Due to the enormous competition, chapels spend enormous amounts of money on advertising, some chapels only spend 10-20 thousand dollars a month on Google Ads, and in order to somehow recover this, it would really take an industrial amount of money laundering. But fewer and fewer of them are coming.

Long live Las Vegas!

Although Las Vegas has not lost its charm, it has lost its cheapness. The booming conference tourism has a great impact on the prices of the city’s hotels and services, as companies spend more than private individuals. However, the rising prices deter those mainly American guests (80 percent of the marriages concluded in Vegas are between American citizens), who would have chosen Las Vegas in part precisely because it is possible to save money compared to a traditional wedding.

Even before the pandemic, the annual number of hundreds of thousands was just over seventy thousand, and covid has taken a toll on the Vegas wedding industry. Since then, fortunately, with the help of the county and the state, we managed to get back on our feet and return the number to over eighty thousand per year, which is still well below the peak of nearly 130 thousand. Since it seems impossible to bring back the good old days in terms of numbers – in the meantime several American states have introduced quick marriage permits – Vegas is looking for new ways.

On the one hand, they put more emphasis on remarried people, taking advantage of the fact that more and more married couples decide to say yes to each other again on the occasion of an anniversary and throw a big party around it. In addition, they are trying to make the offer much more diverse. I would like to show that a Vegas wedding is no longer necessarily the same as ten- to fifteen-minute, industrial-scale weddings, but there is also the possibility of unique, thematic celebrations (Elvis, Star Trek and Gothic themed weddings are the coolest) , we can choose a longer, more solemn wedding, and the city also provides the opportunity to organize the most extravagant weddings. Would you like to say yes on the back of an elephant with the Eiffel Tower in the background while Bruno Mars sings to you and your partner? If you have the money, go to Las Vegas, baby!

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