Now that we had decided to get married close to home, we needed to figure out how to make our wedding day official. As we lived in Las Vegas, the wedding capital of the world, we were unable to take advantage of one of our friends being able to be ordained as our officiant for the day like you can in California. Weddings are such a huge industry in Las Vegas and they aren't about to miss out on making a buck where they can. Which meant, we either needed to hire a religious officiant to make our wedding ceremony legal, at about $350-$400 a pop, or we needed to figure out a plan to get our end result (legal on our date) but not offend our principles (not religous).
Both of us are not religious at all, so we didn't have the benefit of a member of clergy from our place of worship who could make it legal. We also didn't like the idea of a stranger performing our ceremony and the potential for disaster to occur. (Everyone has their stories to share of weddings where the officiant for hire gets the names of the bride and groom incorrect, or even worse, hijacks the ceremony to head down a path of belief and espousing that neither the bride nor groom expected or wanted on their big day.) Plus, even if we were to hire a religious officiant to perform a more spiritual ceremony for us, we then faced the sticky situation of having to extend an invitation for this person, and perhaps their spouse, too, to our reception which meant two more for dinner.
Both of us are not religious at all, so we didn't have the benefit of a member of clergy from our place of worship who could make it legal. We also didn't like the idea of a stranger performing our ceremony and the potential for disaster to occur. (Everyone has their stories to share of weddings where the officiant for hire gets the names of the bride and groom incorrect, or even worse, hijacks the ceremony to head down a path of belief and espousing that neither the bride nor groom expected or wanted on their big day.) Plus, even if we were to hire a religious officiant to perform a more spiritual ceremony for us, we then faced the sticky situation of having to extend an invitation for this person, and perhaps their spouse, too, to our reception which meant two more for dinner.
And then, I figured out a plan that just might work.
And it did.
However, this meant we would need to get up early on the morning of our wedding day to make it all happen. You can't make a reservation for City Hall and we had no idea how long or short the line may be. We did know, we'd get married in our pajamas and matching Jack Purcell sneakers, standard uniform for the both of us when we were home and on the weekends, even if running to the grocery store.
And it did.
We would get married the morning of our wedding day, at City Hall. It would cost $55 to make it legal, and then we could be married in the late afternoon, by our dear friend, in what we considered the real ceremony, with no one the wiser!
However, this meant we would need to get up early on the morning of our wedding day to make it all happen. You can't make a reservation for City Hall and we had no idea how long or short the line may be. We did know, we'd get married in our pajamas and matching Jack Purcell sneakers, standard uniform for the both of us when we were home and on the weekends, even if running to the grocery store.
The morning we were to be married, I made a rose boutonniere for Eddie, a simple rose bouquet for me and off we went to City Hall.
Unbeknownst to us, we were expected to exchange rings during the City Hall ceremony. In hindsight it makes sense since it was a legal ceremony. Fortunately, I had my engagement ring on and Eddie had his silver "engagement" band. Crisis-averted!
We kiss to make it official!
The legal Mr. and Mrs. Edward Camarillo, for a mere $55 fee at City Hall.
This is us exiting City Hall after our legal ceremony.
It looks like we're escaping from a hospital!
