Getting Married in Vegas, September 2017

Hey guys, my soon to be wife and I are getting married in Vegas next September and are looking for some advice from people who have done it, or just been part of a Vegas wedding.

Our general itinerary is
- Wednesday September 20th - get officially married back in Canada on the Wednesday at city hall and then have dinner with the family
- Thursday September 21st - arrive in Vegas, tie up up lose ends, stock up on party supplies
- Friday September 22nd - most guests arrive (some will be Thursday), maybe a welcome get together either in a suite or a bar for some drinks, then have our bachelor bachelorette party
- Saturday September 23rd - photos with our photographer (no idea on where to go), vow renewal ceremony with Elvis and friends (any recommendations on this, chapel? In a suite if our room is big enough?), then celebration

I'm mostly looking for advice on the hotel. We would like to stay on the strip since there's a good amount of people coming to Vegas for the first time. I have sent out large group proposals through Speed RFP (seems mandatory through CNET properties). Received an offer from MGM for $179 a room on Friday and Saturday for Grand Tower Run of House block rooms. Not sure what to make of the offer, is it decent? Are these proposals ever negotiable or is it basically a take it or leave it offer? And are there any perks that either my wife and I can get for ourselves and/or our guests?

Thank you so much for your input

 

I'm curious. Why not do your real wedding ceremony in Vegas? Any reason you are doing it twice? I'm from Canada but was married in Vegas back in 2010. We had 24 guests and it was a great time. People still talk about our wedding LOL.

We were married at Chapel of the Flowers which looks like a little white wedding chapel - totally Vegas wedding to me. Highly recommended. Best part was people who couldn't come still watched our ceremony live on the internet.

We had Mirage as our hotel but I didn't do a group booking as I knew some people didn't want to pay that much and would stay at cheaper options. So we let people book whatever hotels they wanted but we did send out discount codes for Mirage when we came across a good deal. We did have a suite at Mirage so had everyone up to the suite for a welcome party.

Highly recommend Bently & Wilson (http://www.wilson702.com/ ) for photographs - we did a strip tour after the ceremony for some great photos.

 

How many people is a "good amount"?

Go to Kayak.com and see what room are running for your dates.

I got married in the little white wedding chapel but almost everyone likes the chapel they got married in whether it's Flowers, West, or a casino hotel.

I agree with above, let people book their own hotel but tell them where you're staying so they can choose to stay in the same or nearby hotel.

 

- Marilyn fan, one reason is my mom won't be coming to Vegas so that's the big one. Secondly I may be lazy on this point I figured it would be easier just to do a vow renewal rather than a legal marriage in Vegas
- Snidely , will certainly check out some sites to look at rates. For numbers it's hard to say since everyone talks a big game now. We are thinking it could be around 30 rooms or so.

 

Ah - I see Tim. Yes, I can understand not having someone important there. That is why I was excited about the live streaming online as some close family of mine could also not make it. Just to let you know it is super easy to do the paperwork for a real ceremony. You can fill in your marriage application online ahead of time. We chose a package at the chapel that included a limo that picked us up the day before the wedding and took us to pick up our marriage license. It was fast because we had already done the application online. Once you are married you go online a few weeks later and order a certified marriage certificate. That is it. Very easy.

I assume all of your guests will know you already got married? It might be just me but if I was going to someone's destination wedding I would want to be seeing the real deal not the second time run through. Obviously, you need to do what is best for you and your bride though.

 

I noticed that you plan on using Elvis for your vow renewal. I have been checking on using Elvis for our wedding this spring. The Viva Las Vegas chapel has a number of different Elvis packages. That looks like what we are going to go with.

 

We did an Elvis vow renewal for our Anniversary in May of this year at Graceland Chapel. Highly recommend. Our guests loved it!

 

Got married in Vegas this august at the valley of the falls at Mandalay Bay. Had about 45 guests fly out from the east coast!! I would suggest a block of rooms unless you have price sensitive people... We were all spread out mostly Cosmo, PH, flamingo and individuals at MC, ti and harrahs. Everyone had a great time but definitely didn't see the further away people as often as the people near us.

We used presidential for limos, freeds bakery for cake and private dining room at grand luxe cafe at the Palazzo (most reasonable deal we found - it was great everyone raved about the food and service)

For photos we had the photog in the package at mandalay bay do photos there and an independent photog ,et up with us after and we took limo to the welcome to vegas sign and then the bellagio fountains. She wanted to take us to CP too but it was like 110 out and we felt we had enough good pics.

Used a men's wearhouse for tux rental .. Got measured in Boston and picked them up at the vegas location

 

We also got married at MB. Highly recommend it. They were willing to work with us on rooms but we stayed at the palms.

 

We got married at Paris and all our family members got rooms at the Embassy Suites off the strip. It worked out well for us because we did our before wedding party at the Managers Reception there in the hotel. We did do an after wedding party in our suite at the Paris after the ceremony. Even though I prefer the strip, I would 100% do Embassy Suites before the wedding because I loved having the price of the party rolled into the cost for the rooms.

 

We were married at MGM and it was unbelievable. With a wedding package we were able to book a terrace suite for a great price to have our "reception". I can not say enough about the MGM and the staff.

 

My nephew was married at the M resort, ceremony was poolside with the reception at the top of the M with a spectacular view of the strip, hands down the most beautiful wedding I've ever attended

 

We got married in Vegas 16 years ago today. It was just me and my wife. We elopes. Her brother came to serve as a witness and play golf. It was supposed to be a NYE wedding but we snowed in, big flight delays. We arrived in Vegas a few minutes after midnight on NYE. We do have an awesome wedding dare though 01/1/01. 16 years and still strong.

 

Very cool wedding date, BlueBellThunder!
Happy Anniversary to you and your bride and Happy New Year!

RICHARD

 

Thanks. I wish we were in Vegas to celebrate but oh well. We'll be there in April. We did celebrate our 1 anniversary in Vegas. We left 3 days early so we wouldn't miss NYE. We stayed downtown at Golden Nugget and it was a blast. Maybe I'll convince my bride to do it next year.

 

We got married in Vegas, didn't have any guests but we just wanted to slope off and avoid all the expense and circus around a 'proper' wedding. I wish we'd gone for an Elvis option but we were being tight with our pennies and as I recall, he was more expensive!

 

(not sure if your still looking)

We got married in 2010 at Little Chapel of the West (right across the street from Mandalay Bay) and did our reception at Strip Steak at MB. Ours was small (tiny) - my parents and sister, her parents and sister and a few good friends.

We all stayed at MB and we flew our photographer out to LV from Buffalo with us.

It's definitely easier if everyone stays at the same hotel - one of my friends who happened to be there on business that week stayed at Luxor. The day of, while my wife and her sister were getting ready, I had him meet me at Starbucks at MB not realizing it was a good 15-20 minute walk each way from Luxor, through Excalibur into MB, hahahaha. He was fine with it, but I felt bad, lol.

MB has really nice grounds to take pictures at (a few attached) and it's quiet enough that the lobby isn't packed / the photographer isn't trying to deal with crowd control. You can also find pretty good rates at MB compared to some of the other MGM properties cause it is away from the center a bit.

 

Far out thank you very much for the pictures. Still looking for a perfect fit but we are certainly into crunch time. Will check them out.

 

Crunch Time? Heck Tim, we are planning on a May 25 wedding and still have some loose ends to tie up. One of those involves what chapel to use. We have narrowed it down to Viva Las Vegas, The Little White Wedding Chapel, and the Graceland Chapel. Right now it looks like the Elvis in the Garden package over at Viva Las Vegas will be our choice but we haven't finalized that yet. I am going to ask everyone for a little bit more advice before locking things up. Good Luck on your wedding. I feel certain that it will be fun and memorable.