Hump Days: Gettin’ Hitched in Sin City

I think the kind of people who say “Vegas Baby” are the same kind of people who quote The Hangover, so I’m not going to lower myself to that, but I will say that while you read this from your PC under a neon light, I’m probably having my 9 a.m. Bloody Mary somewhere near a pool, disregarding sunblock and many, many different cancer studies. Later in the afternoon, I might go purse shopping or get an undeserved massage. Before dusk, I’ll probably embarrass myself with a food buffet. What I won’t be doing, though, is getting married, but 315 other people will before June 2 commences.

The good news is that, with parental permission, even sixteen year-olds can make a legally binding commitment to someone they know, and/or just met, at one of Vegas’s 100 wedding chapels. Like everything else (barring gambling, drinking and becoming President), anyone can get married at 18 in Vegas, with or without mom and dad. From 8 a.m. – midnight, 365 days of the year, you can get married without a blood test or waiting period so long as you have state issued identification, $60 cash ($65 with credit card) and someone who is less related to you than a second cousin. (Sad caveat: gays still can’t marry third cousins or anyone else of the same-sex in Nevada- although many of the chapels will still put on a fabulous ceremony for the right price.)

For those of you that do enjoy all the rights of United States citizenship, not only can you get married in Vegas, but you can have an ultra quirky wedding there. And by quirky, I mean Star Trek, pirates and Camelot, not to mention the five-minute drive-thru chapels- which are a good idea for anyone that plans on putting as much thought into marriage as the writers of What Happens in Vegas put into that screenplay.

Assuming romantic comedies aren’t real and it doesn’t actually work out, Vegas vetoed the mail-order divorce in 1931 on the grounds that it would detract from tourism. However,  you can still get marriages annulled as long as you can argue a “lack of understanding/insanity” (see drunk).