Decided to get married in Vegas...so excited!

tg89

Hi all!

I'm new to the boards, and have spent the last couple of days perusing messages. I'd like to get some thoughts on everything...

So my fiancé and I were originally planning a traditional, moderately sized wedding at home. Come to find out, even a small wedding with the basics in the DC area is insanely expensive--we were over budget before even beginning to plan our honeymoon. During a conversation about the wedding over lunch one day I casually joked about Vegas and how I'd seen a wedding chapel that was the oldest there and Scottish-themed (my family is Scottish and I am a history major, so that resonates). It turned into an actual conversation, and before we knew it, we were seriously considering getting married in Vegas.
Once the decision was made, we've both become so much more excited to plan than we were for the traditional wedding. I have never been to Vegas, and my fiancé has only been once, and very briefly at that.

So here are some questions:
The chapel that I saw is called Wee Kirk O' The Heather. Has anyone here gotten married there or knows anything about it? I've looked extensively over their website but there's not a lot of photos. Also, I wasn't aware before I started looking on these boards and researching how many OPTIONS there are for getting married in Vegas. I know we want something fun and a little kitschy (I love Elvis, and am a burlesque dancer--my first routine in my first troupe was to Heartbreak Hotel). Now I'm questioning if there isn't a better option (although I still love the idea of getting married in a Scottish chapel).

We are roadtripping with two friends out there from the DC area. Has anyone done this/have any tips? I've been on many road trips and love them, but have never done cross-country before.

I have more but I'll make a separate thread for them later so this one isn't too long!

vegasgroom

Congrats and welcome.  My wife and I were similar; she envisioned a church wedding, I was opposed, next thing you know we're getting married in Vegas and everything worked out perfectly lol.  Glad to see TK (the knot) fixed the forum issue that let you choose your username instead of Knottie123456.

Here's a link to a bunch of information to get you started:

http://www.vegasgroom.com/news/Wedding-planning-in-Las-Vegas-is-overwhelming-where-do-I-start_1.html

One thing to keep in mind up front while researching venues are their photography and videography pricing and policies if that is important to you.  Many chapels, resorts, venues, etc. have very very expensive, and very very restrictive policies on those, so you need to go into negotiations knowing that or you may find the place you fell in love with is going to cost you a lot more than you expected.

Regarding Elvis, the person who married my wife and I does those as well as non-Elvis ceremonies, his name is Rev Roland August and his website is http://www.themobileminister.com  He may be a good person to talk to as he works at a huge number of chapels and resorts, so he may be able to give you recommendations on places that would be able to pull off exactly what you envision, whether you use him or not, although he makes a good Elvis.

Knottie1448836539

Vegasgroom....how DO I change my username?  I couldn't find that option.

congrats TG....we are seriously considering the golden nugget for next sept.

tg89

Vegasgroom, I saw a bunch of your posts about Rev. Roland and went through your site and we are definitely considering him! I watched a video of him doing a pink Caddy Elvis wedding and it was great.

Any idea what costs/permit things there are for getting married in front of the Las Vegas sign? Thoughts? I saw that is one of his options and that would actually be pretty cool.

tg89

Also, vegasgroom (or anyone else who has used Rev. Roland's services) what was your experience with how serious/humorous he was for your ceremony? I like the Elvis thing being a part of it but when it comes to the actual vows I want it to be a little bit more serious (not too much, but a little) and we haven't decided yet if we want traditional vows or making up our own. Is he pretty open to discussing how the ceremony should go or does he just kind of do his own thing?

vegasgroom

Knottie1448836539 said:

Vegasgroom....how DO I change my username?  I couldn't find that option.

congrats TG....we are seriously considering the golden nugget for next sept.

I wish I knew; I'll try to find out if you can change it after the fact.

vegasgroom

tg89 said:

Vegasgroom, I saw a bunch of your posts about Rev. Roland and went through your site and we are definitely considering him! I watched a video of him doing a pink Caddy Elvis wedding and it was great. Any idea what costs/permit things there are for getting married in front of the Las Vegas sign? Thoughts? I saw that is one of his options and that would actually be pretty cool.

Marriage license and officiant fees are the same regardless, but what I don't know is if you have to get some special permit/permission to get married in front of the sign, given that it's a very popular tourist destination and the city probably doesn't want a bunch of weddings holding up the visitors, or maybe they don't care, I just don't know.

vegasgroom

tg89 said:

Also, vegasgroom (or anyone else who has used Rev. Roland's services) what was your experience with how serious/humorous he was for your ceremony? I like the Elvis thing being a part of it but when it comes to the actual vows I want it to be a little bit more serious (not too much, but a little) and we haven't decided yet if we want traditional vows or making up our own. Is he pretty open to discussing how the ceremony should go or does he just kind of do his own thing?

He is great at adapting to your requirements.  We wanted a mostly serious ceremony, no religion, but also not boring; he gave us exactly what we wanted.

xoeden

Everyone seriously loves Rev. Roland on these boards, and on Yelp, whether it's been an elopement or a traditional wedding or something wacky. I've never seen a bad word about him.

tg89

Well, once we have our official date nailed down, I'm thinking I will probably contact him and then build the rest of the wedding around that. I'm assuming the chapels (Wee Kirk, Little Church of the West, etc.) don't allow you to bring in your own minister unless he is affiliated with them in some way?

xoeden

You can probably pay an extra fee, but he seems to have deals with almost every chapel in Vegas. You can always contact him first (I know we haven't nailed our date down yet formally but I've been in correspondence with him). The guy loves what he does and you'll see it after only an email or two.

[Deleted User]

We're doing Wee Kirk in March 2016.  We chose it for several reasons--one was the (admittedly vague) Scotland connection (the man is a Scot); the other is that it is the oldest continuously operating chapel in Vegas--that really appealed to both of us.  One of their options is a wedding at the sign, so you could look into that.  We thought about it, but ultimately decided on the Lilac ceremony, I think it's called-about $297.  We chose that one because a) we could do it without Elvis, as neither one of us is a big Elvis fan, and b) it came with a DVD and photography, which we wanted because my mom won't be able to be with us, and it would just crush her if she couldn't see it.  She's not tech savvy enough for live streaming, and we wanted to surprise her at a dinner back at home afterward and we didn't want to have a friend go over to her house with a computer to show her the live stream.  I haven't had a ton of contact with Wee Kirk, but the booking process was super-smooth.  You go to their site, create an account, and put in some basic details--they emailed back very quickly (1-2 days) with our initial reservation and more details, we chose our specific package and the date and time we wanted; we booked about 6 weeks before wedding and got the time and date we wanted with no issues (granted, we're not doing a weekend or holiday or anything else when it was likely to be super-busy).  We had a couple of emails about a few details--we weren't sure we wanted the limo, and then we are staying at the Southpoint which is away from the Strip, so an extra fee is involved, but that's it--as far as I know, we're all set to go--we got a note that was detailed about fees/gratuities, and some notes saying we had to be dressed and ready when the limo showed up to pick us up, and I haven't had any other questions.  We are, however, a very low maintenance couple, and it's just us plus the man's brother and wife, so no guests to worry about, but I've been very pleased as we worked with them.