Everyone’s invited as weddings go out over the Internet from a Las Vegas chapel

Lisa Ferguson

Thursday, Aug. 5, 1999 | 9:23 a.m.

So, the big wedding day has arrived.

White dress? Check.

Rented tux? Got it.

Flowers, music, chapel? All set.

What about the guest list? Is there anyone you've forgotten to invite? Was a long-lost cousin not able to attend the joyous occasion?

Not a problem, as long as you're tying the knot at A Little White Chapel on Las Vegas Boulevard South, where a camera can broadcast your nuptials to the entire planet via the Internet.

The chapel, notable as the home of the "Tunnel of Love" drive-thru wedding lane, was chosen by cable's The Learning Channel (TLC, Cox cable channel 38) to house its Wedding Cam, which claims to show a live wedding every few minutes around the clock on its website (discovery.com/cams/wedding/wedding.html).

But if you're picturing a scenario where the minister asks, "If anyone has reason that this couple should not be united in wedded bliss, let them log on to IObject.com now or forever hold their peace," fear not: The only thing guests on the Web can do is watch the ceremony.

The Wedding Cam is one of six "cams" the channel, in conjunction with the Discovery cable channel, has set up around the globe. Others keep a constant eye on a beach in Del Mar, Calif.; Florida's South Beach; the Panama Canal; the Western Wall in Jerusalem; Inner Harbor in Baltimore, Md.; and the Washington Monument, which is currently surrounded by scaffolding as part of a refurbishing project.

The camera is an offshoot of the channel's "A Wedding Story," a half-hour show that airs thrice daily (at noon, 3 and 3:30 p.m.) and anchors the channel's weekday lineup. In its fourth season its premise is simple but sweet: Follow a couple in the days leading up to their wedding ceremony and through their reception.

Much like that show's diehard viewers (largely women in their 20s) Wedding Cam watchers can become addicted to the thing, Jodi Bettencourt, an online producer for TLC and the Discovery channels, says.

"They put it on their computers and they keep checking back throughout the day. It's fun." On its busiest day the site received 50,000 page views, but typically averages about 25,000 a day. Peak times to catch weddings in progress are evenings and weekends.

A Little White Chapel was chosen to house the camera "because there was a better chance of seeing many, many weddings if someone came to (the site) many times a day, versus putting it in a reception hall or a church or something like that," Bettencourt says.

Good thinking, since nearly 110,000 couples were issued marriage licenses in Clark County in 1998.

Bettencourt found A Little White Chapel through an Internet search and was intrigued by its star-studded list of previous brides and grooms including Michael Jordan, Judy Garland, Bruce Willis and Demi Moore.

"It kind of had a rich history," she says. "I figured it they selected it, it's probably a pretty good place" to set up the camera (although she's not aware of any celebrity weddings having taken place since the camera was installed nearly a month ago).

But it could be stars saying "I do" when, upon a couple's request, the Wedding Cam goes dark for the duration of a ceremony. (Brides and grooms must sign a release at the chapel in order to have their wedding shown on the Web, otherwise the camera does not roll.)

"We just want to make sure that they know they're going to be on it, and if they don't want to be on it, they need to shut the camera off," Bettencourt says, explaining there have been "very few times" when she's logged on to the site and found the screen dark.

"There's the other side of it ... if someone's going to have an impromptu wedding in Las Vegas, it seems to me that they're of the spirit that they wouldn't care if other people saw it."

Take Las Vegans Marta Franco and Brian Pollack: The two tied the knot at the chapel on a recent afternoon surrounded by a handful of guests.

"We're excited, so why (not let) everybody else share it?" she said about the camera before marching down the place's short, pew-flanked aisle.

In fact, Franco, a registered nurse, seemed too busy wiping away the tears of joy that streamed down her face during the couple's quick ceremony to even notice the blue Wedding Cam peering out from behind the puffs of white tulle and sprays of silk flowers that adorn the chapel's walls.

Charlotte Richards, the chapel's owner and an ordained minister, is pleased with the camera's placement and says it has been well received by about "90 percent" of the "hundreds" of couples that have been married beneath it so far.

Walter Hayes and his bride, Tulla Sakes, both of Las Vegas, were pleasantly surprised by the camera's presence. "It's the first time that I'll get world recognition," Hayes joked prior to the couple's ceremony (which preceded Franco and Pollack's vows by minutes).

Richards says she invites brides and grooms to call home to alert friends and relatives with Internet access to watch the nuptials on the 'Net as they happen.

Even Richards admits she logs on to view the Wedding Cam "all the time. I think it's cute." She says she encouraged TLC to also install a camera to capture drive-thru weddings.

"I told them that the variety is a lot different" than in the chapel. "(Couples) come in pick-up trucks; they come in Hummers; they come in Porsches; they come in the back of limousines," she says. "They said, 'No, it's busier in the chapel.' I'm sure that one day they'll want to do that."

In any case, most of the ceremonies that take place at A Little White Chapel are quick -- about five minutes long, Richards estimates.

With the time-lapsed photography featured on the website (a click of the mouse "refreshes" the images every minute), blink and you could miss the entire event.

"People don't come here to be preached at," Richards reminds. "They come here to get married."