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The
Little White Wedding Chapel, Las Vegas
If you’ve heard
of one Las Vegas wedding chapel, it’s probably The Little
White Wedding Chapel. Here many celebrities have held their ceremonies;
open 24 hours a day, the chapel gets plenty of drop-in (and even
drive-thru) couples who just can’t wait to say their vows.
We just returned from a tour of The Little White Chapel where
we visited all their wedding chapels, flower shop, and wedding
center and had the chance to meet owner Charolette Richards.
The Chapel: One of Las Vegas’s
best-known and longest-running wedding chapels, The Little White
Wedding Chapel is the creation of Charolette Richards, often nicknamed
the “Wedding Queen of the West.” An ordained minister,
Richards has personally performed many of the celebrity weddings
and heads up a crew of 60 employees who supply not only vows but
wedding dresses, flowers, and more for the nuptials.
The chapel started with the Little
White Chapel, a small facility with simple white pews, decorated
with white flowers and cherubs; that chapel has served as the
setting for most of the celebrity weddings here (including Britney’s
short-lived nuptials.) Couples have the option of exchanging vows
in the original chapel (sometimes called the Michael Jordan Chapel
because he said his “I do”s in this room). Other options
include the Chapel
of Promises, with elegant columns and red velvet settees for
guests, the 32-seat L’Amour
Chapel, and the smallest venue, the Crystal
Chapel, a Victorian-style room just off the wedding dress
shop and a favorite for vow renewals.
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| "Elvis"
walks a bride through the Tunnel of Love at Little White Chapel.
Photo courtesy Las Vegas News Bureau |
What’s
Unique About This Chapel: The most unique venue at
The Little White Chapel is the “Tunnel of Love,” a 165-foot
covered driveway for drive-thru weddings. The tunnel is lit with
tiny lights and its ceiling is painted with cherubs. You can drive
through in your own car (or even on motorcycle, bike, or rollerblades,
if you like), or opt for a package which includes the drive-thru
in the chapel’s stretch limo.
Celebs Who Married Here: Little
White Chapel boasts one of Vegas’s longest list of celebrity
weddings including Britney
Spears, Michael Jordan, Mickey Rooney (not just once but twice),
Frank Sinatra and Mia Farrow, the Dixie Chick’s Natalie Maines,
and many more. The celebrities all opt for the original Little
White chapel, the small room off the lobby that’s now named
the Michael Jordan Chapel.
The Packages: There’s
a whole bevy of packages that add on everything from flowers to
photos. If you’ll have a wedding party, one package includes
pickup in an Excursion limo for you and up to 12 guests; you can
say your vows in the Tunnel of Love or by the minister as you
travel down the Strip. Little White Chapel also offers hot air
balloon ceremonies and helicopter weddings as well.
The wedding packages
also include pickup from your hotel by the chapel's stretch limo.
Cheapest Wedding Package:
Your best bet for a cheap Las Vegas wedding is the drive-thru
package. For less than the price of a Vegas marriage license,
the two of you can drive through the Tunnel
of Love and exit and husband and wife. For a $20 upgrade,
you get an instant photo of you and a single red rose. Another
option for the budget-minded is the a la carte offering; you can
pay the chapel fee only and add extras one by one. (Don’t
forget; you’ll also need to pay a minister’s donation
of about $50. Forgot the fee…which must be paid in cash?
There’s a handy ATM machine in the lobby.)
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| A
couple exits the Little White Chapel's Tunnel of Love. Photo
courtesy Las Vegas News Bureau |
Extras:
Don’t have a wedding dress? No worry; the chapel has a wedding
center next door to the original chapel; it includes everything
from zoot suits to the latest bridal gowns in sizes 0 to 30. A
full-service flower shop on site can also make just about anything
you’d like. A photo
studio provides several settings for posed wedding shots including
a carriage and elegant columns.
Couples can also
opt for a webcast so friends and family back home can watch the
ceremony. (Most webcasts are broadcast from the original Little
White Chapel; there’s an extra fee for setting up a webcast
in the other venues.)
Foreign Language Ceremonies: The chapel can arrange
for translators for many languages; the ceremony will be performed
in English and translated for the couple. For Spanish-speaking
couples, a Spanish-speaking minister will perform the ceremony
in Spanish.
Rules, Rules: Little White
Chapel has a lot of rules (all children must be held by the hand
at all times, no video cameras, no cell phones, etc.) but one
seems particularly mercenary: no one may take photographs in the
chapels. If you have wedding guests, they cannot shoot pictures
during the ceremony or after the vows; they’ll have to buy
photos from the chapel’s photo studio. How romantic…
Another rule, which
is state law, is that the chapel will refuse to marry any couple
with liquor on their breath.
For More Information :
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