Glitter, glamour and vows of a lifetime

We couldn’t get Elvis. He had previous commitments in thousands of cheesy chapels across Clark County, Nev. We might have found Celine, had I convinced Andy Thomas, my fiance, how cool it would be to tell our grandkids we had been hitched by a Celine Dion doppelganger. This was, after all, a Vegas wedding.

But Andy, who’s as irreverent as I about institutions, couldn’t stomach that degree of cheese. From the outset, he had laid down certain laws about our elopement in Sin City: no drive-through chapels, no parachuting Elvises, no Celine or Wayne Newton ministers and nothing involving roller coasters. Ours would be a dignified event, by Jove. So the man who married us last June at the We’ve Only Just Begun Wedding Chapel was a regular guy in a regular dark suit.

But other than the Rev. Anton Stacey and the certificate declaring us married, there was nothing regular about our Vegas wedding. Which was the point.

When you’re making the -- you hope -- most sober decision of your life, why not offset all the solemnity and pomp with some serious whimsy?

Andy and I are in our 30s and had been engaged for a couple of years. Although we didn’t want a freak show -- we could have stayed home in Austin, Texas, for that -- we figured a traditional wedding could cost as much as a house down payment.

Instead we chose a ceremony a deux that symbolized our collective quirk. Andy’s a glam-rock guitarist and an aspiring real estate mogul; I am a freelance writer who ends up in places like Uzbekistan and Romania. Besides, we would have a built-in honeymoon in a place as intoxicatingly romantic and exotic as any I’ve visited.

From the moment we arrived at McCarran International Airport, we reveled in moments of kismet and for-better-or-for-worse twists of fate.

At the MGM Grand’s express airport check-in, for instance, nothing was as expected: Our room wasn’t in the tower; it wasn’t smoking; it didn’t overlook the Strip; and the bed wasn’t a king. A trip that begins with hotel foul-ups can wind up entirely off-kilter. (In fairness to the MGM Grand, the staff did tell us that they could put in requests only for a view or upper room in the tower.)

Just as we had given up on our honeymoon desires for a tower room with a Strip view, a second staffer joined MGM’s effort to make it right. The mention of nuptials had spurred him, I suppose, but when I noticed his nametag -- it said “Sherman” -- I felt Lady Luck take a 180. My name was inspired by a line of Shermans in our family, and I said as much to this Sherman. When it turned out he was from Alabama, as is Andy, our man redoubled his efforts. After 20 minutes of furrowed-brow finagling, he got us everything we wanted. Under his breath, he told us we’d been upgraded.

Part of the Vegas game? Who knows? It didn’t matter. Grateful, we tipped Sherman.

Our tower room in the Grand was sedate with beige and gold tones, a king-size bed and a smashing view of the Strip. We could have stayed in, but it was Thursday evening, and we were ready for a night on the town. Before going out, however, I suggested we confirm the reservations for our wedding the next day. Andy had booked it at 1 p.m., researching chapels online and settling on a “Fire and Ice” package for $231.98 (plus $75 deposit) that included limo pickup, delivery to the courthouse for license, ride to the chapel and back to our hotel, as well as 24 color photos, wedding video, bouquet, boutonniere, minister, wedding certificate and holder, “Here Comes the Bride” music and a blue-ribbon garter.

But the chapel didn’t have us listed. Somehow the name of the place we had booked online and by phone -- A Chapel by the Courthouse -- wasn’t the same as the one that answered our call that night. Apparently the company has several chapels, and the operator couldn’t find us on any of the rosters. Brief panic ensued, but after numerous phone calls, the second angel of the day, someone at the We’ve Only Just Begun Wedding Chapel, which was part of A Chapel by the Courthouse, found our reservation. The wedding was on.

That scare called for a few rounds of roulette and a bottle of champagne. Although we lost at roulette, Andy pointed out that we were winning at love. Despite the 120,000 or more couples who marry here each year, Las Vegas has an eternal appreciation for lovers. As we wandered through the cavernous MGM, the bartenders were generous, and fellow gamers offered encouraging words on wedded bliss. Blackjack dealers congratulated us heartily; the pit boss took a Polaroid of us.

The big day arrives

That night, sleep was deep and dream-filled, and we woke early to check out the weather on our wedding day. What else but cloudless skies? Temperatures reached triple digits by midafternoon, but I had packed accordingly: I wore a tea-length white cotton and ribbon Betsey Johnson corset dress with kerchief hemline. Andy wore a black gabardine Ungaro suit and red silk tie.

At 12:20 p.m., we headed downstairs and waited next to the MGM’s golden lion statue, an auspicious symbol, we thought. The limo arrived at 12:30 and whisked us to the courthouse downtown, where the line of couples applying for no-waiting-period marriage licenses snaked out the door alongside another queue of defendants with their lawyers.

The lovebird line held 20-odd blissed-out couples, who were giddy and decked out on, presumably, the best day of their lives. Next to us was the jailbird line. They were not blissed out. Most weren’t wearing their Sunday best, and they were not all atwitter. They were grousing on what was surely one of the worst days of their lives.

Yet there was common ground between us, I suspected. Like a few in the lovebird line, some jailbirds weren’t quite sure how they got there -- or how it would all end.

Fortunately, Andy and I were certain of our fate and, half an hour later, we cozied up to each other in a tiny, slightly dingy chapel.

I loved everything about the ceremony. I loved my red-and-white rose bouquet, the burgundy-velvet camelback settee, the chintzy floral wallpaper, the plastic rose cluster swagged around the ceiling.

The bridegroom was broody at first: He thought the room had looked bigger and more sedate in the pictures online. But once the “I do’s” began, we could have been anywhere in the world.

With the deal sealed, we stepped outside into the busy downtown, just across from the jailhouse and the Fremont Casino. As I kissed Andy’s cheek, a paddy wagon and two police cars howled past, lights flashing, sirens roaring and horns honking -- at us. On the way to a crime scene, the police officers were congratulating us.

The rest of our four-day trip was our honeymoon. That night we hit the Tropicana, where we had booked a package to the Folies Bergere and Mizuno’s Japanese steakhouse at $65 per person. It was quintessential, vintage Vegas and, unbeknownst to us, group seating. We quickly made friends with our four tablemates. Our chef wowed us, slicing and dicing surf and turf entrees beneath flashes of strobe light. Then we headed to the casino, where an unexpected act greeted us. Under the massive stained-glass dome, two acrobats came twirling toward us, suspended from cables above the slot machines and game tables. As they flipped and spun, harrowingly close to the glass dome with each swing, I marveled like a kid at the circus. This was the Vegas I’d hoped for.

Next was the Folies Bergere’s adult show with topless dancers, which was pure entertainment. I recommend seeing the first half, because it traces the history of burlesque, from the cancan of Paris to Esther Williams and Florenz Ziegfeld to the sex kittens of the ‘40s. But the second half, when the choreographers go disco and pop, lacked pizazz.

The next day we were sightseers, and I have to say, Disney has nothing on the Strip. The pharaoh greeted us at the Luxor, and posh awaited at Mandalay Bay. (Both connect to the Trop and Excalibur by monorail.) We cruised the Venetian with its gondolas and canals, toured Caesars Palace and poked our heads into the sprawling Bellagio. By 7 p.m. we were wiped out, content to grab dinner at the Wolfgang Puck Cafe at the MGM, where we had sea scallops and linguine in saffron and light tomato sauce for $15 and a lamb chop special for $20.

Back in our room, we reserved tickets for Wayne Newton the next night at the Stardust. My unshakable desire to see Newton surprised Andy, who had planned to take me to something more contemporary. But I wanted to see classic Vegas. I soon learned that there’s nothing more “wow” in Vegas than Wayne Newton on an “on” night. We piled into his showroom, full of grandmothers, military officers and foreign tourists, for a two-hour-plus show.

Although his voice was hoarse from recent USO tours, he still cast a spell, belting through Elvis covers, his own repertoire and a surprisingly agile version of “MacArthur Park.” When all was sung and done, my husband, himself a musician with glam-and-glitz leanings, sat dumbfounded. But I knew early on -- when Newton came on stage in a space suit, with a fog machine steaming -- that Andy would be sold for life.

I too was sold for life -- on Newton, on us, on Vegas, on all the surreal energy of this city that never sleeps.

Shermakaye Bass is a journalist based in Austin, Texas.