Though chapel’s closed, wedding woes persist

Thursday, Dec. 27, 2007 | 7:20 a.m.

When New Year's resolution time comes around, dozens, if not hundreds, of couples around the world will be promising themselves to tell as many couples as possible not to get married in Las Vegas.

Though the effect of this year's Las Vegas wedding chapel imbroglio has yet to be reflected in a decrease in numbers, many people are calling the Nevada Wedding Association with horror stories bound to be spread by word of mouth and via the Internet worldwide.

More than two months after the city closed the Las Vegas Garden of Love wedding chapel - the business at the heart of many complaints - Joni Moss, vice president of the Wedding Association, still is getting frantic calls from the betrothed.

"Last week, I got so many calls," Moss said. "It's gut-wrenching and very upsetting."

Calls are coming from couples who had planned weddings with the Garden of Love months in advance. After the chapel lost its license following a two-day appeal before the Las Vegas City Council, people from across the nation and around the world who had booked Garden of Love weddings were left stranded.

Some couples reached by the Sun said they ordered their weddings online and with a credit card. When they learned the Garden of Love had gone out of business, they were able to challenge the credit card charge and get their money back.

Moss said she also received a call from someone who had made wedding arrangements with an individual claiming to represent the Garden of Love as recently as two weeks ago. That account could not be confirmed.

That story surprised attorney Stephen Stein, who represented the Garden of Love when it appealed its license revocation to the City Council.

"As far as I know, they are not doing business," said Stein, adding that he has had little contact in recent weeks with Cheryl or Craig Luell, the chapel's co-owners.

At first it looked as though the Garden of Love, which had done business in Clark County for five years, was going to be sold. Stein said that deal fell through.

"The (Luells) thought they had a better deal," Stein said. He did not know, however, whether another deal had been struck.

The Luells, featured in March 2005 in a short-lived reality TV show about their chapel, could not be reached for comment.

Rumors about someone illegally doing business as the Garden of Love, Stein insisted, are unfounded. The potential basis for some of those stories, he said, is a "rogue" relative whom the Luells have "excommunicated" from the family for "doing all kinds of shenanigans" when he was released from jail for an unspecified charge.

None of these stories, of course, does the wedding industry in Las Vegas any good.

Even before the drawn-out legal confrontation between the Luells and the city, weddings were down in Las Vegas. Although Clark County ranks as the world's second-most-popular place to get married, behind Istanbul, Turkey, according to the Nevada Wedding Association, weddings here last year were down more than 10 percent.

Much of that is believed to be directly tied to a reduction in hours at the Clark County Marriage Bureau, where couples get their marriage licenses. Formerly open 24 hours a day, the office last year began closing from midnight to 8 a.m.

Moss said revisions in those hours, such as keeping the office open 24 hours on holidays and weekends, are being discussed.

The city also is considering strengthening its ordinances against soliciting for business outside the Marriage Bureau office, in the southeast corner of the Regional Justice Center, Moss said.

That, chapel owners alleged, is where most of the trouble with the Garden of Love began. Couples leaving the Marriage Bureau are typically greeted by handbillers with brochures advertising deals at various chapels. By ordinance, the handbillers are not supposed to talk to or solicit the couples unless they are asked to do so.

For years that law was flouted. Then competition among chapels became such that one Garden of Love employee was arrested and charged with attempted murder for stabbing another chapel's handbiller. Those charges were dropped when witnesses didn't appear in court.

The city is considering adding a requirement that a handbiller be a certain distance from the Marriage Bureau.

Even with the Garden of Love gone, Moss said stories of chapels accusing each other of intimidation or heavy-handed solicitation are starting anew.

Moss attributes the relapse to the fact that other chapels hired some of the Garden of Love's former employees.

"A leopard can't change its spots," Moss said.