LAS VEGAS (AP) – After 30 years of marriage, Don and Cindy Couse traveled overland from New York on June 21 to renew their vows at Graceland Wedding Chapel.
Friends and family back home watched and cheered Zoom during the 2:30 p.m. ceremony. This year marks another special anniversary for the couple. The two met in 1971 in kindergarten in Albany, New York, around five decades ago and have been connected ever since.
The trip was timed well for her and her husband, who are both 51 years old and work in IT.
Having never been to Las Vegas before, they thought it was the perfect place to celebrate their decades together. “The ceremony was super lighthearted and fun,” said Cindy Couse. “We got a little sentimental, I was wearing my mother’s pearls.”
After more than a year of quarantine, they needed a short vacation. “Really, it was just great to be back outside and doing things,” she told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
The couple is far from alone. Thousands of couples are flocking to Las Vegas as the coronavirus pandemic subsides and vaccinations rise in a wedding boom that has left the local wedding industry in high demand. And with COVID-19 restrictions on large gatherings eased in June, Las Vegas wedding chapels, venues and planners said they are as busy as ever.
Since the spring, the number of issued and registered marriages in Clark County has skyrocketed. The number of marriages filed in June rose by almost 30 percent from 5,737 to 7,451 compared to 2019. So far, there have been more marriages in every month in 2021 than in 2019, except January. In June marriage licenses increased by more than 14 percent compared to 2019.
Venue operators have noticed.
Donne Kerestic, CEO of Chapel of the Flowers, said his company had “clearly seen growth” at the ceremonies over the past few months. This year, Chapel of the Flowers is up about 20 percent compared to business in the first six months of 2019, he said.
At the start of the pandemic, Rod Musum, vice president and general manager of Graceland Wedding Chapel, said he had to cancel nearly 2,000 wedding ceremonies. Now, just like Kerestic’s experience at the Chapel of the Flowers, things are back to normal.
“It didn’t happen overnight, but when things opened up again we got a lot busier,” said Musum. “The demand for ceremonies is great. Our daily bookings are starting to exceed the average we had before the COVID-19 illness. “
Sedona and Brian Alcaraz were one of those couples. The couple married on June 5 in an outdoor garden chapel at Caesars Palace. Sedona Alcaraz grew up with her parents in Las Vegas. Brian had never been here before. Sedona wanted Brian not only to experience Las Vegas on the greatest day of their life, but also to make memories with family and friends “in a fun way” after everything that happened last year.
It’s not just wedding locations that are basking in renewed demand.
Wedding-related companies such as caterers, clothing stores and wedding photographers are also getting a boost.
Kristen Solis’ photo shop – Kristen Marie Weddings + Portraits – was devastated by the pandemic last spring. Solis had about 20 weddings hit by the pandemic – roughly two-thirds of their clientele for the year. Solis said her company made money with fewer, bigger weddings – the riskiest at the height of the pandemic. Only a few rejections hurt her in normal times.
Solis weathered the storm. Most of their clients have postponed their appointment for this year or 2022. Now, as always, it is fully booked. “This has been my busiest spring in business in 12 years,” she said.
At first glance, one could attribute the marriage boom solely to the pent-up demand mentioned by Musum. But some say there’s a lot more to it than that.
Kerestic, the CEO of Chapel of the Flowers, has a theory. Planning a wedding was stressful enough even before COVID-19. Now, he suspected, they turn to the experts with the weight of a global pandemic on the shoulders of the soon-to-be married couple.
“We are a city with a full range of services. If you do it elsewhere, now you have to become a project manager, hire 14 different vendors, find a location, your pastor, photographer, videographer, florist, DJ, limo driver, ”said Kerestic. “I think it got so overwhelming for couples that they thought, ‘Let’s just go to Vegas’ because it’s a one-stop shop. They will do the whole thing for us. “
Clark County clerk Lynn Marie Goya said she believed the pandemic had changed people’s view of a relationship.
“I think it made people reevaluate what is important to them,” Goya said. “One is the financial and health aspects of marriage. But you also know that you have someone to trust and depend on when something bad happens to you. There is a solidity that being single does not offer. “
Despite the current boom, there is room for growth. The full pre-COVID-19 Las Vegas wedding clientele has still not fully returned thanks to ongoing restrictions on international travel.
Goya said about 20 percent of the city’s clientele are locals and the other 80 percent are weddings and vow renewals. About 20 percent of the latter 80 percent are international couples who come to Las Vegas to get married.
While domestic demand is higher than ever, the current international wedding industry market in Las Vegas is only a fraction of what it was in 2019. Goya said she expects “another boom” once all international travelers can get to Las Vegas.
Las Vegas’ identity is tied to its wedding industry, Goya said. Long before huge resorts emerged, they said, weddings supported the city.
“We have been the wedding capital of the world for 50 or 70 years,” she said. “I think it became so much a part of us that in some ways we took it for granted. Over the past year and a half or so, Las Vegas has become a really safe, efficient, and fun place to get married, even during the pandemic. And I think that reminded people of what made us the wedding capital of the world in the first place. “