Couples find Valentine’s Day bliss in Las Vegas

By Erin Dostal

Sunday, Feb. 14, 2010 | 8:03 p.m.

As newly married couples milled through the Little White Wedding Chapel, a guy dressed like Elvis Presley interrupted its Cupid-esque owner, Charlotte Richards, mid-sentence to give her a hug. It was Valentine’s Day, after all.

“This is an internationally known place, and (couples) come here because it’s very special,” said Paul Casey, 42, who was dressed as The King to perform during the ceremonies.

Richards estimated her chapel would marry more than 120 couples on Valentine’s Day – a typical number for the holiday, she said.

The chapel offers a variety of services, including a drive-up window where, for $40, couples can get hitched.

Even though the chapel’s ceremonies are short, lasting only about 12 to 15 minutes, they are the start of something big and long-lasting, Richards said. Eighteen couples signed up for spots to get married at midnight on Valentine’s Day, she said.

“Las Vegas is not the city of sin -- it’s the city of love and romance,” Richards said. “I want to be instrumental in changing that.”

Richards said there’s no typical profile of a couple that comes through. Last week, an 89- and 90-year-old came to the drive-up window to get married, she said.

Some brides bring their own fancy gowns and their entire families, she said. Others wear casual street clothes.

“I don’t think that matters,” she said. “I think what matters is what’s behind their clothes, in their hearts.”

Richards has owned the Little White Wedding Chapel, 1301 Las Vegas Blvd. S., for 50 years. Her mother, 86-year-old Rhoda Jones, plays piano and organ during ceremonies in the main chapel.

“I love the happy atmosphere,” Jones said. “You see them make a future together.”

Before one couple – Millin Grace Bombio and Scott David Corker – got married Sunday in the chapel’s largest room, wedding coordinator Azanty Jacobo performed a small ritual as she does before every wedding: She handed Corker a bouquet of flowers to give to his fiancée.

“Please give this bouquet to your bride and kiss her on the cheek, because the next time you kiss her, she will be a married woman,” Jacobo said.

Danielle Rumsey, 24, and her fiancée, Roy Sheffield, 25, waited outside the main chapel to get married. Rumsey, who was wearing her square-cut diamond engagement ring, said her future husband’s proposal to her wasn’t much of a surprise – they were in love and knew they wanted to make it official.

“She got home from work one day and I asked her to marry me,” Sheffield said. They have been together for seven years and got engaged on Valentine’s Day 2009.

Rumsey said she decided she wanted to get married in Las Vegas after going to her sister’s wedding, which was long and expensive.

Stephanie Van, 30, and Matt Do, 29, both of Los Angeles, rode up to the chapel’s “tunnel of love” on Sunday, not in a car, but on matching bikes, wearing almost-matching sneakers.

Her shoes were pink; his were blue.

Van and Do met during their freshman year of high school. When they met, Do was too nervous to ask her out to a school dance, so he had his friend do it for him. Van refused to go with him unless he asked her himself. He did.

The couple lost touch for several years, but they reunited after college. They have been dating for eight years.

Although they will have a larger wedding Nov. 13 in Los Angeles, they got tired of waiting, and came to Las Vegas on a whim.

Being married “kind of feels the same,” Van said. “We’ve been together for so long.”