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The Mirage announces the SATW conference on its Strip marquee.

We visit the Venetian for the first time.

Waiting outside before our vow renewal at The Little Church of the West.

We're Back From...Las Vegas

We've just returned home from the 50th annual Society of American Travel Writers conference, this year held in Las Vegas (which is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year.)

This was a record-setting conference for the group with over 600 attendees so, while there were a lot of familiar faces with travel writers and public relations representatives we knew from previous travels, there were a lot of new people to meet as well.

The conference ran from Sunday night through Thursday night but we decided to come in a day early to squeeze in a little personal time. We signed up for an extra night at the conference hotel, The Mirage, which has long been one of our Las Vegas favorites but which we'd never had the opportunity to stay at before now.

Saturday

On Saturday, we had the full afternoon to check out some of the hotels we hadn't visited before, like The Venetian and the new Wynn. (We loved the Venetian; the Wynn was nice but, to be honest, a little boring to us.)

Sunday...and a Vow Renewal

On Sunday we had a very special itinerary planned: we booked a vow renewal at Little Church of the West. Located on the far south end of the Strip (unlike most of the other standalone chapels which are near downtown), we selected this chapel both for its convenient location and for its long history. The Western-style chapel has a long list of celebrity weddings including Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thornton.

We'll be writing more about the vow renewal in upcoming stories as soon as our photos arrive but we're happy to say it went even better than expected. We booked the renewal completely anonymously and the staff at the chapel couldn't have been nicer. The ceremony was lovely and was a really special start to our trip. [Read more about our Vegas vow renewal and see the photos.]

Since the other chapels are located on the far north end of Las Vegas Boulevard, we rented a car for that day, traveling from our vow renewal north to check out the other chapels. We'll be writing all about these chapels in the coming days.

Sunday evening, we had an opening ceremony at Fashion Show Mall, a chance to see some of our old friends who were attending the conference. That night, the conference offered tickets to Zumanity, the new Cirque du Soleil show at New York-New York.

Monday

On Monday, we signed up for a half day tour of the wedding chapels of Caesars Palace, located just next door to The Mirage. A far cry from the standalone chapels, these venues were ultra-luxurious with all the care of a dedicated wedding coordinator from start to finish in the planning process.

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