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Of the myriad virtues and vices that define the Las Vegas experience, the easy opportunity to marry may be among the most unique. All told, Las Vegas is the site for 5.5% of weddings that take place in the United States - a bookmaker's dream that represents more than 1 in every 20 ceremonies.'
In the midst of such statistics, the wedding chapel has earned its place along the star-studded Strip and just about every other nook and cranny Las Vegas offers. From high-end hotels like the Bellagio and the Wynn to old guard sites such as the Little White Wedding Chapel (and its drive-through ceremony option), these venues remain a significant draw even during our less than rosy economic times. While the number of marriage licenses issued by Clark County has declined in recent years, wedding chapels continue to do a brisk business.
Officially speaking, within the corporate limits of the City of Las Vegas, 32 chapels currently hold active business licenses. Twenty-eight additional wedding chapels are licensed through Clark County, including the Strip's most prominent hotels and resorts (e.g., the aforementioned Wynn Las Vegas and Bellagio as well as the Venetian, the Tropicana, MGM Grand, the Mandarin Oriental and Mandalay Bay, among others) and sentimental favorites like the Little Church of the West.
Deconstructing the Wedding Mystique
What accounts for Las Vegas' seemingly dichotomous identities - vice and virtue, sin and morality? "There is a thread that runs through the whole history of Las Vegas] as it relates to America and American culture. It's a refugc.It's a place that you indulge yourself in. It's a way out of the incredible straight jacket that we find ourselves in, in our highly regimented and regulated lives," explained Mark Cooper, a journalist and contributing editor at The Nation.1 "It is the licensing of fantasy. There is that opportunity or the illusion of the opportunity that you can change everything," added David Thomson, a writer and film critic.'
Consequently, the wedding chapel in its own way offers a variation on the wedding ceremony motif - a phenomenon explored by a diverse group of cultural critics. Writing m the late 1960s, Joan Didion offered the following assessment: "What strikes one most about the Strip chapels, with their...