‘Pull up: We’re going to renew your vows’

Melissa Schorr

Saturday, Sept. 6, 1997 | 11:08 a.m.

Across the boulevard, prostitutes go traipsing by, and signs proclaiming "strippers" flash madly.

Ignoring them, Charolette Richards leans out of the white neon drive-thru window of her Little White Wedding Chapel and launches into her sermon for the umpteenth time that night.

"Love is patient, kind, gentle, joyous and peaceful," she croons sweetly, quoting from Corinthians, Chapter 13, Verse 4. "Love does not know hate, anger or jealousy. Love believes, hopes, bears, and endures."

But is it possible to find a semblance of love, of sincerity, of spirituality, in a quickie at 1301 South Las Vegas Boulevard?

From a quick survey of the surroundings, one wouldn't think so, with the wall of celebrities' pictures, the schlock crystal chandeliers and gold framed mirrors, stacks of pastel t-shirts reading "Mommie and Daddy Got Married at the Little White Wedding Chapel."

But witness the glistening eyes of Ralph and Lori, of Kim and Edwin, of Donna and Michael, who were driven to tears, who unmistakenly cared about each other, if not their surroundings.

Tonight has already had its share of mishaps. Richards, who owns and operates five local chapels with a fist of steel beneath a white satin glove, has already seen a change of mind, from a couple that walked out after discovering their minister was -- GASP! -- a woman.

Soon after, there is an Elvis Mixup: "Did you want the flashy, glitzy Elvis or the retro Elvis?" the exasperated countergirl clarifies for the confused couple, who seemed divided on the subject.

As always, a troop of limo chauffeurs loiters in the cramped chambers, waiting to shuttle couples from hotel to license bureau to chapel, around and around again.

In the chapel sits the grandmotherly organist -- wearing a rhinestone heart pin that reads "Jesus" -- who helpfully rattles off musical selections for each couple. "I can do Barbra Streisand, Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Lionel Richie, Luther Vandross, Brian Adams, Bette Midler, The Carpenters," she itemizes breathlessly.

Attending the drive-thru counter is a UNLV broadcast journalism student, still new enough to the business that she sends each couple off with a license and an earnest "Have a Happy Life" -- in a sing-song without a note of irony.

By contrast, a more cynical photographer roams about snapping shots, snorting "that's romance," about impulsives who meet over Las Vegas craps table and end up posing for his lens two hours later -- a clientele which is, in fact, a rarity.

Instead, the customers arrive, usually with forethought and reservations -- even if they are tying the knot on a whim or an afterthought.

"I call it the Taco Bell wedding," says a smiling Michele Elliott, who met her green card-seeking Scottish husband, David, only three days earlier in a bar in New Mexico.

As it grows dark, Oldsmobiles and Toyota Corollas begin lining up for their turn at the nuptial window.

Richards is called over to a couple from Alaska. "What faith are you?" she inquires, preparing to begin.

"None," the two reply. Wrong answer. "You do believe in God?" thunders the petite minister, ordained in the Grace Cavalry Church.

"Yes, yes," they meekly assure her.

But when Richards discovers that the woman's parents, huddled in the back seat, have been married for 52 years, all is absolved.

"Bless you!" she squeals to the long-married, back seat couple, and then: "Pull up -- we're going to renew your vows right now!"

Next, the Bollars drive up, looking barely old enough to vote, let alone wed. In the back seat, their 6-week-old son, Jordan, weeps, until his father sticks his pinkie finger in the baby's mouth. "My stepfather did this a few months ago," he says by way of explanation.

After pronouncing them husband and wife, Richards scoops up the infant and begins babbling in high-pitched baby talk. "Lord, just bless little Jordan. Bless him, Lord Jesus." She snaps a photo of the couple, the baby, and their brand new marriage license.

In quick succession, she conducts a double wedding for a tittering group from Kansas, marries an emotional pair from St. Louis and a young couple from Aurora, Ill., jumping right into the back seat of their limo. "It's much quieter this way," she explains.

What brought them all here? There is no satisfactory reply, only a vague notion of uniqueness and, less often than you'd suspect, a sense of camp.

"Something different," they answer vaguely. "We saw it on TV" or "We found it in the phone book" or "We wanted to do it casual."

"Look," says Michele pragmatically, "I wasn't having flowers and I wasn't having the gown, so I just decided to do the drive-thru."

Minutes later, Richards is on the green astroturf carpet outside the chapel, conferring with a working girl bedecked in sequins. Telling her to leave, perhaps?

"On no!" she shakes her head vehemently. "I was telling her about Jesus!"

Richards and her husband started the business 38 years ago. She lost him 20 years ago.

Though she figures she has performed half-a-million ceremonies, when asked of her own marriage, she gazes down the twinkling boulevard.

"I don't think," she answers wistfully, "I'll ever get married again."