Weddings crashed Strip resorts, suit says

By Joe Schoenmann (contact)

Thursday, Aug. 30, 2007 | 8:11 a.m.

Maybe there is such a thing as too much love.

Or maybe it's just that love is never easy, at least not lately at a Las Vegas Boulevard wedding chapel served with a search warrant for allegedly stolen goods during the weekend and sued in U.S. District C ourt in June for allegedly performing weddings on Strip resort grounds without permission.

A Metro Police spokesman said a search warrant was served Saturday on A Garden of Love wedding chapel, 1431 Las Vegas Blvd. South. Police declined to specify what property was being sought, and the warrant detailing the search was not available Wednesday.

The wedding chapel also is being sued by Bellagio LLC and Mirage Resorts Inc. for an alleged trademark violation. Documents filed in federal court allege that A Garden of Love was marketing and performing weddings using Bellagio and Mirage trademark images and locales without consent.

As part of the lawsuit, casino attorneys included four "snapshots" from A Garden of Love 's Web site showing $649 wedding packages advertised as "Wedding at the Fountain at The Bellagio," "Wedding at The Mirage," "Waterfall Wedding at Volcano on the Strip " and "Wedding at the Fountain Water Show on the Strip."

The last ad featured a picture of the Bellagio. And on the Strip, the one site commonly associated with a volcano is the Mirage, which has a faux volcano erupting on the hour from 8 p.m. to midnight daily.

The lawsuit contends that showing the casinos in the ads implies an association where none exists. There is no contract between the casino and the wedding chapel, a Mirage spokeswoman said.

Another allegation in the suit is that , after a July 5 wedding, A Garden of Love "falsely informed (a) bride that the $700 fee paid to (the chapel) for the location was paid to the Bellagio."

This month, Chief U.S. District Judge Roger L. Hunt granted a preliminary injunction against the chapel and its owners, Cheryl and Craig Luell, from using any images, re-creations or imitations of the Bellagio or Mirage trademarks. They are also prohibited from conducting weddings on the casinos' property without permission.

T he Luells have not legally responded to the demand, a Mirage spokeswoman said. And the Luells did not return repeated phone calls and an e-mail from the Sun.

Their Web site, however, has changed. The chapel no longer offers Bellagio and Mirage wedding packages. But it still advertises a "Waterfall Wedding" - with the word "volcano" removed - and a "Wedding at the Fountain Water Show," with a photo of a happy couple against a fountain of undetermined location in the background.

Before the warrant and the lawsuit, A Garden of Love was cited in a police report regarding an alleged attempted killing over chapel handbilling turf outside the office of Clark County's Marriage Bureau.

In front of the steps that rise to the office where couples obtain marriage licenses, representatives of a number of chapels wait with brochures. As giggly soon-to-be-married couples walk down the steps, they are approached by chapel employees who try to elbow out competitors as they make their sales pitches for low-cost weddings .

The alleged attack occurred between two such chapel barkers. On March 27, Marquise Vance, 30, working for a chapel named the Las Vegas Wedding Bureau, told police , he was attacked by Lee Ross Sr., a Garden of Love employee, who allegedly came at Vance swinging a knife. Vance also told police that Craig Luell grabbed Vance and the two fell to the ground.

Ross was later arrested and charged with felony assault and attempted murder. Charges were dropped, however, because Vance did not show up in court.

Las Vegas' fake Elvis, drive- through wedding biz can be ridiculed as a campy, kitschy slice of Americana. But the weddings are real and legally binding. And if it's a chapel-eat-chapel world, that's because the bottom-line stakes are huge.

In just one five-day period in March 2006, the Nevada Wedding Association counted 2,205 weddings performed in Clark County. The Little White Chapel oversaw 307 weddings, followed by A Garden of Love with 263. Based on the average chapel fee of $200 - and with extras, it can rise much higher - those two places alone took in $114,000.

That could explain the growing allegations of thuggery, intimidation and threats among chapel employees. It's gotten so bad that many chapel owners have turned to the city for help. They say it's hurting an industry which, before the wedding juggernaut of July 7 (7/7/07) , had seen weddings in the first six months of the year tumble 9 percent.

Chapels aren't the only losers. With most weddings come guests and hotel rooms, shows, meals and gambling for those guests.

Las Vegas City Councilman Gary Reese has asked the city attorney to look into making it more difficult to obtain a chapel license as a way to curb some of the unsavory behavior.