Our Las Vegas Elopement
If you follow me over on social media, you’ll know that in January 2023 we eloped to Las Vegas. We wed on our 13th anniversary, making the 23rd January the most satisfying in the calendar. The day we celebrate not only how long we’ve been together, but also married.
Images by @ashleytrulyA bit of back story…
We were originally getting married in the UK in June 2023. We had a gorgeous venue booked in Cheshire, the catering was pie & mash from a guy in Macclesfield and we even had a DJ. We’d eyed up mini golf for outdoor entertainment and had a running joke we'‘d be hiring a bouncy castle. My dress was ordered from ASOS and my sister had even tried on a bridesmaid dress.
Moving to October 2022, we’d had two weeks in Orlando and knew when we got back we’d need to throw ourselves into planning mode. Except, there was no joy when we got home, just dread. Surely planning a wedding should be exciting, albeit a little stressful?
So, within a few days we’d cancelled everything to do with our UK wedding and booked flights to Las Vegas. After telling friends and family they no longer needed to ‘save the date’ I turned my attention to finding our dream wedding venue. We’ve been together since we were 16 and always joked we’d get married in Vegas, it just felt right that we were making that happen.
One question I get a lot is ‘how did people take it?’ and 99% of people LOVED the idea and were happy for us. We won’t talk about the 1% but just a friendly reminder to all that someone elses wedding is exactly that, someone elses. If you can’t be happy them, keep your mouth closed. A wedding is about two people and two people only - the two getting married.
The legal stuff
To get the boring but absolute essential information out of the way, you need a wedding license. Your wedding license is then given to your licensed venue and depending on the venue, they’ll file it for you.
If you are looking to elope to Las Vegas yourself, all of the information about marriage licenses is here. We filled out the online form and didn’t think about it again until we flew out to Las Vegas to get married. When planning our flights and wedding date, we made sure we had a day before the ceremony to sort out marriage license. So on our first morning we headed to the Marriage License Bureau with $102 in cash and left with our marriage license.
We handed it to the officiant at our ceremony who filed the marriage certificate for us. I then recieved an email which gave me the opportunity to order however many copies I liked - I think we went for 3. Within a few weeks they arrived at home!
If you are from the UK you don’t have to give notice or anything, you can just fly out and do the above. Once you get back you can then of course use the marriage certificate to change your name on all of your important documents. Although, I hate to admit, I am yet to do that on everything. That life admin though…
The venue I found was perfect
As you can imagine there are 2042382 different options for your Las Vegas wedding. You can grab Elvis and go for classic Las Vegas nuptuals, find one of the hotels for a more traditional wedding… or land somewhere in between.
I’d like to think we landed in between with Sure Thing Wedding Chapel. Whilst in my head this place was the perfect mix of ‘omg a Vegas wedding!!’ and ‘immaculate, cute vibes’ for some, it might be the complete opposite. Either way, I fell in love with it and after showing Nick, he was sold. This was after I spent a good few hours with 2943 tabs open assesing all of the options. Another FAQ is how I found the venue, but your besties are Google and Instagram!
The ceremony was quick (we went for 'The Sure Thing’ package), flowers were there waiting for me and we could bring our own music. We walked down the aisle together, fumbled our words, I put Nicks ring on the wrong hand - classic us. But it was exactly what we both wanted.
The photographer was a huge one for us
If I was flying out to Las Vegas to get married, I knew I wanted it documented. I thought this was the big chance in life to get some ‘cool’ photos as cool we are not. Nick isn’t big into photos but he looked great and I knew we’d regret it if we didn’t invest in a good photographer.
Again, Instagram was my friend here. I came across Ashley when scouring various hashtags relating to Vegas photographers and I’m so glad I did.
Ashley is incredible at her job, we were both extremely nervous, like, these were our Vegas wedding photos, we wanted them to be amazing! She put us at ease and basically told us what to do. Not only has Ashley shot weddings at Sure Thing countless times before, she was able to understand our personalities and tell the story of our wedding perfectly. I look back at these photos and I’m still obsessed over a year on - I can’t believe that us!
I was so excited to pull my look together
A Vegas wedding is a completely different vibe to a summer, barn wedding in the UK. When it came to my look for our wedding I was so excited, which was just one of the times I knew we’d made the right decision. Even Nick was excited to buy his suit, opting for a coloured one from Next. I think it was one of the first times he had a vision and I left him to it.
My dress was by Molby the Label and I’d already purchased it for my hen do (which was cancelled along with everything else!). I decided to lean into the pink and red of the venue, which is my favourite colour combination and found a gorgeous pink bag in Mulberry. It was in the clearance section at the outlet and I got it for a bargain. I actually skived off work for an afternoon, met my bestie and we found it together - a really special memory for me.
When it came to shoes I had bought a pair of pink, platform heels from Matalan. As I type that sentence my feet hurt. I’m not a heels gal and anyone who knows me knows that.
Not long before we flew out I was being followed around the internet by a pair of pink and red cowboy boots and after ignoring it for a couple of days, I caved. Best purchase of my whole life I’d say. I think they looked amazing and I’m thinking they may be the perfect base for a ‘Lover’ look to the eras tour.
Accessory-wise I kept it simple, my gorgeous friend Karina from Chasing Childhood made me the most perfect headband. And I used another small business for my custom faux leather jacket.
My veil is still one of my favourite parts of my outfit. My nan got married in this veil and I was so nervous to dye it pink. It had discoloured over the years and I knew she’d fully support the Vegas wedding if she was here. So on one night in December picture me, my bath, pink dye and this veil. Thankfully, it worked really well and it’s something I’ll keep forever.
I’ve been asked a lot how do you know whether to trust someone to do hair and make-up without a trial. My answer is you just have to wing it. Or, I guess you could book a trial for your first day to work out what you want? I’m fairly low maintenance and was extremely laid back about this wedding that I just trusted my hair and make-up artist.
I got myself onto Google, found an agency, reached out and booked it. She was absolutely lovely and I was obsessed with my hair and make-up.
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We booked our ceremony fairly early and went there to In n Out burger (via a dive bar for photos!). After getting changed we headed to the Neon Museum and ended the day at Dennys. It was the best and most ‘us’ day ever. If you are considering eloping, I’d 100% recommend you do it. I’ve never been so sure in a decision I’ve made and we both talk about how it was the best trip ever!