Two decades after first getting engaged, Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck have finally tied the knot. And after splitting in 2004 and reuniting this year, ‘Bennifer’ chose to mark the momentous occasion with a wedding in Las Vegas.
“We did it. Love is beautiful. Love is kind. And it turns out love is patient. Twenty years patient. Exactly what we wanted,” J-Lo wrote in her newsletter.
“Last night we flew to Vegas, stood in line for a licence with four other couples, all making the same journey to the wedding capital of the world.”
While Vegas has long been synonymous with weddings, the bright lights, casinos and show girls can divide the crowd. So what’s it really like to get married in ‘sin city’ if you’re outside of the celebrity bubble?
Two couples shared their experiences.
Sophie Gill Griffiths and her husband Daniel chose to tie the knot in Vegas in September 2018. The couple had previously holidayed in Vegas and Sophie, from Cheshire, admitted the city took a few days to get used to.
“It is a bit of a shock on the senses, and the morality senses,” she previously told HuffPost UK. “It’s so big, it’s so over the top and so gluttonous, it plays into the vices of human beings, so it took us a day or two to relax into it.”
But when the couple began planning their wedding, they decided they wanted to return with friends and family – and eventually flew back with 42 guests.
Sophie’s dad died when she was young and she wasn’t sure how she would handle a traditional British wedding without him there. “I think that would have been quite emotionally hard for me,” she said.
A big incentive for the pair was also the lower cost of a Vegas wedding compared to a UK wedding.
“We looked at a traditional wedding, we’d been to quite a few that had obviously cost a lot of money. We’d seen the physical and emotional toll that could take on people and the stress that people put themselves under and we didn’t want to do that,” she said.
The couple’s big day spanned multiple locations – something they wouldn’t have been able to afford in the UK. From a chapel wedding they went to a garden in a downtown bar, visited a casino, ate in the private room of a restaurant, took photos of the bouquet toss by the Las Vegas sign and ended the night on a rooftop bar with views of the entire strip.
“I think a lot of people have this idea that Vegas can be very trashy and yes, it does have that side to it. But anywhere you’ve got such competition to be the best, actually, things can be really good quality,” Sophie said.
“The chapel was beautiful. The food was some of the best food I’ve had at a wedding – we had swordfish and steak. The whole day was just amazing.”
In comparison, Laura McEwan and her husband Ian, from Birmingham, discovered the quieter side of Vegas at their October 2017 ceremony.
“The wedding itself was in a private garden of a hotel surrounded by flowers and it was really intimate,” said Laura.
For the couple, choosing Vegas as their wedding location was a no-brainer.
“We decided to get married in Vegas having been to all sorts of traditional weddings in the UK and realising, whilst all were lovely, they weren’t for us,” Laura said. “We wanted something fun that people would remember.”
The couple had 30 guests fly over, which was actually more than they expected to sign up to the holiday.
“Most of our friends and family were supportive but some couldn’t or wouldn’t come due to the cost – which we totally understood,” Laura said.
But their day went without a hitch. After a quiet ceremony they embraced the full Vegas experience, with margaritas in the hotel garden, a disco limo back to their hotel and pizza before dancing the night away.
“It was great to get married in the sunshine - no fear of it raining in the desert,” said Laura. “Our only regret is getting married on the last day, rather than at the start of the weekend. Let’s just say everyone was quite hungover by the time the ceremony actually arrived.”