Nowadays it can feel as though it’s both easier and harder than ever to get married in Las Vegas. It’s easier because, thanks to the trend in pop-up weddings, you can now get hitched nearly anywhere, including on street corners, inside a record store, or atop the parking garage at Binion’s. It’s harder because now you have nearly endless options to choose from. Should you tie the knot in the bar where you and your soon-to-be spouse first met? At that bookstore where you had your first date? The whole city is your chapel.
“These aren’t your mama’s weddings,” says Berlynn Holdmann. She’s the founder and officiant at Hellbent Hitchings, a business that helps couples in Southern Nevada say, “I do,” in an outside-the-chapel way. “We’re literally popping up in venues,” she says. Instead of a church, chapel, or satin-lined banquet hall being the focus of the nuptials, “the venue creates the backdrop.” And how you define “venue” is up to you.
Holdmann says she officiates between 200 and 250 of these offbeat weddings a year. “I’ve seen it all, really,” she says. “I’ve had couples rent out entire movie theaters, get married in museums, and I’ve gotten couples married with a company that allows you to join the Mile High Club right after your ceremony in a private plane (legally, of course).”
Sometimes you’ll work with the venue to make arrangements, a service Holdmann provides. But because pop-up weddings are smaller in nature (the couple, a handful of guests), a permit or even permission isn’t always necessary.
A Bouquet of Savings
While this style of micro wedding isn’t new, it’s growing in popularity, and Holdmann speculates that tighter budgets could be a reason why. Hellbent Hitchings’ all-inclusive packages start at just $500, a fraction of what a larger, more formal wedding might cost. Victoria Hogan, founder and co-owner of Sure Thing Chapel, agrees: “With inflation, a lot of people are scaling back,” Hogan says.
“Weddings seem to have gotten more intimate, more strategic, and a little more off-the-beaten-path,” says Michelle Wodzinski Capers, a Las Vegas photographer and owner of Fireheart Photo & Film. Capers says COVID-19 might be behind the increase in nontraditional weddings. “I feel that the pandemic messed with many couples’ original big wedding plans while also helping them to realize what and who is really important.”
Hogan says her business has “doubled and tripled” in recent years, perhaps because of the rise of social media sites. When the newly engaged start down the wedding-research rabbit hole, they often begin with TikTok, Instagram, and Pinterest, where they watch reels of couples sharing a first kiss in front of a graffiti mural in the Arts District or hosting a small reception in an ice cream shop, and it just looks avant garde and unique.
And it’s not just visitors who find this appealing. “I get as many locals as I get tourists,” Holdmann says, estimating that 40 percent of the couples she marries are Nevada residents.
Tossing Out Tradition
This was the case for Las Vegas couple Sean and Amanda McGinness. The two got married in 2023 in the backyard of a historic mid-century modern home, a location they’d first seen on Instagram. They opted for a nontraditional wedding because they wanted something small and simple. “We know planning traditional weddings can be very stressful, and we didn’t want to have so much of that while planning for our wedding,” Amanda says. “It ended up being everything we wanted and more.”
Monique Perez, owner of Winston Marie Cakes, says it could be a generational trend. “I’m a millennial, and we’re all just wanting something different. We don’t follow the norm. We like to express who we are.” Perez, who specializes in “vintage glam cakes,” says she makes up to 45 cakes a month for these types of weddings.
While Holdmann has officiated pop-up weddings in several states, she says Nevada’s laws make the process much easier because the state doesn’t require premarital counseling, as some states do, nor a waiting period. And, of course, in Las Vegas you can easily get a marriage license between 8 a.m. and midnight 365 days a year, even on holidays. No wonder this town has a long history of attracting couples looking to shuck tradition.
“Las Vegas brings in couples who want to be bold and authentic and say, ‘Eff whatever the standards are … whatever grandma wants,’” Holdmann says. “You can have someone come to your hotel room and marry you in your bathrobes with your mimosas if you want. You can’t do that in Kansas.”