Our Vegas Wedding

When you tell people that you’re getting married in Vegas, all of the stereotypes flood their brains. Which chapel? Are you eloping? Are you pregnant? Will Elvis is there? Are you doing the drive-through or actually making the stroll down the aisle?

The answers (in our case), were: Not a chapel – a catholic church (yes mom, Christ the King is a real, Roman Catholic Church); no – we took 14 months to plan our wedding; no baby until nearly three years later; while our priest could have doubled as Friar Tuck in the new Robin Hood series, no Elvis – not even so much as a “Love Me Tender” at our reception; we drove ourselves to the church, took a limo to the reception (a REALLY bad idea for a groom who gets carsick) and no drive-throughs were involved – not even so much as a soda from Mickey D’s.

Some things that were uniquely Vegas about our wedding, though…we had to dodge Homer’s ex-girlfriend at the marriage license bureau (she worked there and it took some serious insider info to avoid pouring salt into her gaping, festering wounds)…some of our attendants were late to the rehearsal because of a swarm of africanized bees shut down a nearby intersection…we had our reception at a golf course in the middle of the desert with more xeriscaping than grass…there was an ice sculpture shaped like a desert tortoise…and instead of going to Vegas for our honeymoon, we got the heck out of dodge and spent our wedding night on a snow-capped mountain nearby and then caught a flight to south of the border (and I’m not talking about Taco Bell).

Homer and I watched our wedding video this year with Boo and Doodle. Boo loved my dress and thought Daddy was funny. Doodle drooled. Shocker.

We still look back on that day and think it was probably the “funnest” (sorry for the bad grammar MrW and CajunVegan) wedding we’ve ever been to. It’s not just that we were the center of atttention (although that does help), we had great people all around us. Friends and family came out of the woodwork (“Hello – you’re having a wedding in Vegas in February? Sure! Let me just dig our of my 6-foot Canadian snow drift and pop on down to chow down at your lovely buffet in 70 degree weather.”) and we were so thankful. It became a family reunion on all sides of the family and we loved every minute of it.

So, that’s our Vegas wedding story. Sorry, no Britney-like quickie annulments. Eight years and still going strong. I love you Homer. Thanks for eight years and two great kids.