Let’s Get Married In Vegas

A mirage of marriage in the desert

Let’s get married in Vegas and wish away our worries and go to sleep happy and free. Let’s dream of spontaneity and dance, melt, evaporate in the 112 degree heat. Let’s sleep and dream and be.

A sweltering two-minute walk down the Strip there is a drive-through wedding window. A sweltering two-minute walk, 75 dollars, and a license is all we need to be legally married. It’s a whispered challenge, an emboldening dare to embody the persona of where we’ve arrived. I find it hard to refuse.

Declare experiences as currency and crown Vegas king. Parade in riches — days dissolving into nights marrying into days of casino craze, unimaginable nightlife, high-stakes decisions made in split seconds in an alcohol-fueled euphoria.

Yet in a city all about spectacle, a Las Vegas wedding is anything but.

Our two-minute walk is replaced with a drive due to the radiating heat outside; even so, each step exiting the car and entering A Little White Wedding Chapel is oppressive, a sensation so overwhelming I feel like I have melted into my clothes and they have melded into me.

For these herculean efforts, we are rewarded with a miniature white chapel standing at the end of the block like a corner store: grab-and-go marriages galore. It’s complete with a light-up sign, bright green turf, and a cheery white picket fence.

Walk in and we are greeted with linoleum floors, the brightest LED lighting, and a line of brides and grooms in the waiting room ready for a signature and ceremony. It’s a strange sight and surreal cognizance that in this small setting, we are witnessing so many strangers experience arguably one of the most important days of their lives. I expect to feel underdressed in a tank top and shorts, but glancing around the room, I am not so out of place.

Within minutes, in Vegas fashion we are invited by complete strangers to attend and photograph my first wedding ever. Past the “Wedding in Progress, Do Not Disturb” sign, we make up the only audience members in the room. The sight before me is cool, white, sterile, but soon-to-be newlyweds Mary and Michael bring life: in a periwinkle mini dress, in a single red rose, in their shared love and laughter, in a greater feeling I cannot begin to put into words.

Marriage is an intended promise and permanence, but when I look hard enough I can almost see the gilded altar crumble and decay to dirt, dust, stone before me. The scene is reminiscent of a photo booth: the altar and Bible mere props, the ruched curtain a facade susceptible to falling at any moment. Is this not performance art? In a city full of performances, perhaps this is the greatest show.

Vegas’ marriage is an ambiguous contract, a delicate balance of coy contradictions. There’s evidence of love here, I think — a mirage in the desert. But first, sell me spontaneity, sell me fleeting freedom. That’s what Vegas is for, isn’t it?

Maybe authenticity lies in the humble, easily attainable wedding Las Vegas presents. Or maybe Vegas, city of lights, city of dreams, has commercialized love. Maybe Vegas is king, pronouncing its ideas of devotion, and I am its jester for entertaining them.

As Mary and Michael tie the knot, I hang onto giant puppy Onyx while we finish photos outside, and he chews straight through his red leash.

How long are you staying in Vegas? I ask. “We leave in a few hours.”

I still find it romantic.

Words: Miranda Li

Photos: Eden Porras Harth, Lisi Ludwig