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Las Vegas Wedding Story Little Chapel of the Flowers - brilliant chapel!! Date: 04/12/07 User: Jellyfish197501 Summary: Organising a wedding in Vegas can be tricky from London, England but with the help of this site I found help!! Thank you Content: My ‘now’ husband proposed to me, on bended knee on a dark, rainy night in Greenwich, London, England – where the meridian line (GMT) is and time effectively begins. It was very romantic and the meal that followed was lovely and before we’d even had our starter we had decided that we wanted to get married in Las Vegas, to escape the awkwardness of my divorced parents and to be able to do our own thing with no stress. Wedding magazines were telling me that a big white wedding in England came with an average price list of about £18k!!!! ($35k) so although we’re not skinflints, I’d rather start married life debt free!! We went on an ‘engagement honeymoon’ to Egypt where we relaxed and planned what we wanted to do about the wedding, we also decided to get married within 6 months. So, my research began…. At first I was overwhelmed by the number of options, varying prices and being in England it was a bit daunting to be booking places that I had never seen. I very nearly booked the Shalimar Chapel, the website was impressive and the chapel looked lovely… then by accident I found on the Internet that the Shalimar Chapel was actually a room inside a Howard Johnson Conference Centre…. which just didn’t seem very romantic to me. I spent about a month endlessly looking for help on the internet and then came across a website http://www.aboutvegasweddings.com/ I found it very helpful and full of impartial views from the author of the site and the brides contributions. Top of our list of things we definitely wanted was Internet Broadcasting for our friends and family back home, a good photo package and a DVD or Video. We finally settled with The Little Chapel of the Flowers, a sweet little independent chapel at the North of the Strip. We picked the Traditional Package at $395 (or $411.97 including tax) we added the Sweet pea photo package $99.95 which included some extra posed pictures, I upgraded my six rose bouquet to a colonial bouquet $30.00, 2 weeks of free internet access so that friends and family could view the ceremony for free for 2 weeks after $45 = $174.95 TOTAL: $590 (or about £290 sterling) We booked it all very easily online (a small deposit and then settled the rest about 4 weeks before the ceremony I think) and throughout the 5 months or so of waiting for our big day to arrive we received monthly and then nearer the time weekly helpful reminders about ‘don’t forget to book your hair appointments etc etc’ It was great though, we could forget all about the wedding until we arrived in Vegas at the end of March (2 days before the wedding). Upon our arrival in Vegas I phoned the Little Chapel of Flowers and gave them our room number at the Luxor, the Chapel receptionist was great, really calm and friendly and seemed genuinely excited about our impending nuptials. She assured us that an hour before our ceremony our limo driver Ted would ring the room and would be waiting for us. It all seemed to be going so smooth that I was sure something would go wrong…. it never did..! The day before our wedding we got a bus (the deuce) to the north end of the strip to get the marriage license at the County Clerks Office ($55) and passed some very grotty!! and tacky chapels, some looked disgusting!! and plastic and nasty!! I suddenly got very worried but then we neared a sweet little white chapel with flowers outside and I just knew it wouldn’t be ours.. but guess what? It was!! From what I could see of the independent chapels it looked the best, by far!! Lovely grounds, grass and lots of limos and parking etc. On the morning of the wedding I had pre booked a great company called ‘The Glamsquad’ http://www.glamsquad702.com/index2.html who arrived on time to the room at the Luxor and began to work wonders with a pair of tongs and hundreds of kirby hair grips!! James (the owner and sylist) was chatty and funny and I was totally calm. He then airbrushed my make up (amazingly natural) and did eyes, cheeks, lips etc… I couldn’t see what he was doing but after he’d placed my tiara I looked in the mirror and was very impressed with how he’d done everything so well and in keeping with my ‘sort of’ normal look. The last thing I wanted was my husband to be not to recognise the girl he was marrying!! So, my husband to be had been busying himself by having breakfast somewhere and by the time he got back to the room an hour later I was standing there with my hair and make up done and my dress on…. He was amazed and I had to desperately try and stop myself from crying at the lovely things he said. So, we opened up all our cards and well wishes from home and then Ted the limousine driver phoned and we walked down to meet him, there he was in a lovely white stretch limo with roses on the side. He was a lovely friendly older man and once we’d got in the car he completely left us alone to gather our thoughts before the ceremony. The air conditioning in the limo was great and as it was quite hot we were grateful for it! We arrived at the chapel about 15/20 minutes before booked 1pm ceremony and was greeted at the Magnolia Chapel by a friendly woman on the desk who took our details, marriage license etc. We had pre paid everything so no money was needed. We were then ushered into a small room with a little pew in it and Allan (the minister) came in and chatted to us for about 5 minutes about what the ceremony involved, asked us who would be watching online, did we want to say hello or wave to home (we didn’t) and did we want a short blessing at the end or left totally ‘non religoius’ we chose a brief blessing, which was lovely. We then went to the chapel doors and my husband had a tiny microphone placed on his lapel. I was given my flowers (which I wasn’t very impressed with – silk red) but actually on the photos they look brilliant! And husband to be was given a sweet single rose lapel boutonnière. The traditional bridal march music started and the door opened and in we walked, me shaking like a leaf. The ceremony was beautiful, I laughed and cried and we both enjoyed it so much!! It was only about 10 minutes long but it didn’t feel rushed at all and the minister (Reverend Allan Hanson – English people will get the reference) said some lovely things and the candle lighting ceremony was a sweet touch too. Maria the photographer was also the witness and I have to say she did a brilliant job – I didn’t even realise she was in the room until I saw the DVD – I was just so caught up in the ceremony and looking at my new husband. The ONLY down point was that the ministers mobile phone went off at one point.. my husband didn’t even realise and most people at home thought it was part of the ceremony music but I wasn’t impressed and it was very confusing.. my face on the DVD is a picture!! I look like I’m going to punch him.. ha ha but we had a laugh about it after and to be honest it didn’t ruin anything. Although he didn’t even apologise which was a bit bad I think. We still gave the minister his ‘suggested tip’ $60 – after the ceremony we were given 2 envelopes for the minister and the limo driver. It was good though as we could seal it and it wasn’t opened in front of us. I’ve heard horror stories about tipping at other chapels but am pleased to say that the Little Chapel of Flowers was very discreet about it. Our friends and families were all able to watch the wedding.. although a few had to wait a couple of hours until the internet traffic died down but all have succesfully watched it now, 2 weeks after the wedding. We also now have the DVD which we are able to copy on the computer. After the ceremony Maria took us outside and although neither my husband nor I are natural poseurs, she put us at our ease and we enjoyed it. We then got back to the limo and Ted drove us back to our hotel… some online guests (family and friends) had sent via the chapel website a message that was printed on lovely paper and with a single rose per message – I cried when I read them, they were lovely. At our request Ted the driver stopped at the ‘Welcome to Las Vegas’ sign at the south of the strip and took some pictures of us by the sign (our wedding reception invitations had a cartoon version of this on them before we’d even been to Vegas) so instead of the suggested $35 tip we gave him an extra $20. As he got us out of the limo he took us aside and said some lovely words to us, we were both quite touched. The day after our ceremony we were invited back to the Little Chapel photography room to view our photos in a lovely room with big widescreen monitors and watched a slideshow... neither me or my husband are particulaly photogenic but whatever Maria the photographer did.. she had me crying just watching the pictures!! ha ha they were lovely. With our package we were entitled to about 25 photos in all in regular size prints... however, once I;d seen them I wanted them all!! so as we had upgraded our photo package $99.95 we were able to buy full copyright to them all, with CD, sepia, colour, black and white etc for $395 (about £200) I'm so glad we did this as now we can print as many as we like for us and family and friends and have put them on a back PC so we will never lose them and I can post them anywhere.. see attached So, in conclusion – I had the best day of my life the day I married my husband and the chapel, the glamsquad and doing it in Las Vegas all contributed to making my wedding day one of the best days of my life! |
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