“Lucy, will you marry me… Today?” (Viva Las Vegas part 3)
The words leave my mouth as we awake on the morning of our wedding. Lucy has a think and says:
“Yes”
Caution. What follows is a tale of a wedding day in the crazy land of Vegas. It may include slightly sweet, nice things about the details of the event. Read on if you’re ok with that sort of thing.
08:00 hours. The stratosphere hotel. Room 804.
Lucy is ironing small creases out of her pristine-white Bettie Paige wedding dress when brown rusty water pours out of the iron’s steam vents and onto the dress.
10 print “PANIC IS HAPPENING”
20 goto 10
Run
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PANIC IS HAPPENING PANIC IS HAPPENING PANIC IS HAPPENING PANIC IS HAPPENING PANIC IS HAPPENING PANIC IS HAPPENING PANIC IS HAPPENING PANIC IS HAPPENING PANIC IS HAPPENING PANIC IS HAPPENING PANIC IS HAPPENING PANIC IS HAPPENING
Break.
Up there with natural disasters, the announcement of war and the emotional upheaval of a bowel loosening diarrhoea incident, rusty water on a wedding dress is one of the most panic inducing events that can be experienced.
“SEND IN THE CLEAN UP TEAM, WE HAVE A CODE BROWN. I REPEAT CODE BROWN”.
The cleanup team arrives and swift dabbing/moistening of the affected area takes place. Wet sponge, do your work! A sickening drop in my stomach feels like my intestines have gone bungie jumping with weights attached at the sphincter. After a tense ten minutes, the rust is worked out of the dress and luckily the precaution of turning it inside out goes in our favour. Through Lucy’s veritable expertise in stain extraction, the offending blemish almost completely disappears. We would be the only ones to know this ever happened. Sort of.
08:49 hours. The stratosphere lobby/gambling floor.
We meet up with Glen for a Mcdonalds breakfast and slightly nervously gobble egg mcmuffins with Starbucks tea. All are overhung, trying to rehydrate, piecing together the slightly unhinged events of the night before. Glen is on the phone trying to arrange a flight back home after the weddage as Lady Parkes is about to drop a new life out of her woo woo. They are expecting baby number two and it is only a couple of weeks until the due date. Glen is understandably nervous and trying his best to get back to Colorado.
Our wedding is set to commence at 1.pm and after our Mcbreakfast of Mckings, we start the preening process. Lucy has her hair done in a salon at the bottom of the Stratosphere, whilst I skype home to my parents to have a chat about it all.
11:12 hours. Stratosphere room 804
We both return to our room and start to get ready. I am in an all black get up, skinny jeans and black shirt with a coordinated red tie and converse combo, a kind of Americana punky, rock and roller look.
Lucy slips into her dress, does her makeup and in combination with her very posh hair styling, looks absolutely stunning, like a 1950s Hollywood movie star. Classic and truly classy, she radiates gorgeousness underneath the bright blue Nevadan skies, the fine ornate details of the dress shimmering in the sunlight. She oozes exquisiteness and is a sight to behold, beauty personified standing right in front of me – the absolute apple of my eye. After months of travelling in practical clothing, dorky walking trainers and tied up hair, Lucy does in fact, scrub up really well.
11:45. The stratosphere taxi park.
We all jump in a slightly decrepit taxi (the door seals keep on flapping onto Lucy’s head) and travel to the Welcome to Las Vegas sign at the end of the strip. To ensure we beat the traffic, we leave early and get there way before we need to. An hour early in fact.
12:05 hours. The Welcome to Las Vegas sign.
The sign is huge and there is already a large crowd gathering in front of it. Upon Wayne Newton (Las Vegas legend) boulevard, the sign bisects the freeway in and out of Las Vegas and to the east is McCarran airport. The ambient engine volume is loud, making me wonder if we’ll have to scream our vows to one another.
Wait a little nervously we do, and after fifty minutes or so, our photographer Steven Joseph and his wife Chris arrive. They complement the beautiful lady standing next to me (that’s Lucy by the way) and start to set up their equipment. Steven looks like a ex-rocker still rocking out, dressed in black and sporting a badass goatee. He is funny, knowledgable about much and we all get on really well. Professional and light hearted, he makes us feel at ease in terms of knowing he’ll get good shots of the wedding. As Steven finishes his setup our minister Angie arrives. A big smile and vivacious blonde ringlets greet us, and she too is dressed in black, a slick looking trouser suit and heels. Everyone looks pretty. We hand over her dues before the ceremony begins.
Then the ceremony begins.
13:00 hours. Underneath the sign.
Lucy and I stand next to each other in front of the sign, holding each other’s hand as Angie begins the service. The sun shines at its brightest and highest, necessitating the need for sun glasses, cementing the glossy look we hanker for in the photos. An exhilarating sensation kicks in as if we have stepped onto a moving roller coaster (without the screaming, vertigo or heaving) as a shot of adrenalin surfs through the veins. Cowabunga, the service moves fast. I look at Lucy in her cool, white bug-eyed glasses and we both laugh throughout the proceedings nerves playing some part in our outward emotion.
We were unprepared for what Angie was going to say and with only modest details emailed to her before the event, she produces a lovingly personalised speech which feels emotionally charged. It references our ten years together, our worldwide trip and somehow manages to feel very ‘us’. It’s Enough to bring a lump to my eye and a tear to my throat. Glen brings in our sugar encrusted Jelly rings and as we say our vows to each other, it all feels pretty perfect. We say our “I do’s” complete with Jelly on fingers. The transformation begins, Spall becomes Williams and we have a little kiss witnessed by Glen and a couple of hundred Japanese tourists in the Nevada desert. We are mawwied and it feels really cool. An amazing experience in an amazing location that I would recommend heart wholedly.
A torrent of high fives, cheers and claps are aimed in our direction and a number of people come to have their photos taken with us. For the first time in my life I feel like a tourist attraction.
Steven Joseph clicks away capturing the best moments of the day. We perform like monkeys in a gala variety performance with a number of poses ranging from jumping scissor kicks, to extreme skipping, to pirouettes, to hanging out with Elvis.
“Who’s the king”? Says Elvis.
We point at Elvis.
“Who’s the queen?” Says Elvis.
We point at Lucy.
Steven’s wife Chris helps with lighting and they make a great little team. We photobomb a posing football team and ‘improve’ a number of other people’s shots near the sign. We make the photography session fun and try to come up with as many poses as possible, keeping the energy high.
15:17 hours. Fremont street.
Jumping into Steven Joseph’s truck, we all head down to Fremont street which is where Vegas originated. Fremont street is ultra cool with a different atmosphere to the Las Vegas strip. Undergoing a new regeneration from a big shot local investor, it feels like a Vegas seen in the mid part of last century. More low-key and sophisticated, perhaps the Sinatra/mob style trappings rather than the ADHD screaming child neon of the main strip. We walk past the world famous Heart attack burger joint in which chubsters over 300 pounds eat for free. Word has it the staff are dressed in doctor and nurse scrubs. Unfortunately we don’t have time to cardiac arrest there.
Steven Joseph has done his location research and has been tipped off of a few locations that sound like our sort of places. Bars and restaurants are happy to let us shoot in their establishments (Who could say no to a bride and groom on their wedding day?) and we pose like pros way into the evening. Lots of our shots involve jumping, which plays havoc with Lucy’s still wobbly Bolivian death knee. A drunken homeless hobo observes from a distance screaming:
“SHE’S GONNA BLEED YOU DRRRRRRRRYYYYYYYYYYYY”. His professional relationship advice falls on deaf ears and we let him get back to his cocktail of antifreeze and crystal meth. As we walk through the day we are continually congratulated by high fiving Las Vegas-ites (las Vegans?) who ask us:
“Did you just get married?”
Because of trading services (photos for websites), neither party is watching the clock, allowing for experimentation in the shots. The whole experience feels like posing for pictures for a magazine shoot and we clock up a good four hours of posing in front of the camera. We feel exhausted.
17:40 hours. Atomic bar.
We end the night shooting at the world famous Atomic bar which has been around since 1952. People used to watch the Atomic bomb tests and drink cocktails from the roof of the bar. Much later, the rat pack commonly frequented Atomic and it was also the location for one of the scenes in the film Casino. The one in which Joe Pesci loses it with a fountain pen. Another nicer hobo pushes his can laden trolley in front of the bar trying to have a chat with us as our photographer takes more natural drinking shots outside. We gently persuade him away with a gentle cash persuasion. The bouncers use the more direct ‘bollocking’ approach and threaten him with physical violence.
Finally we can’t take any more and call it a night, feeling pretty happy with the four hours of photography in the bag. Incredibly Steven then says to us:
“Do you want to do some more tomorrow?”
We take him up on the offer, allowing us to reenergise and come up with some new ideas for shots and poses.
20:00 hours. Top of the World restaurant, Stratosphere.
Our evening finishes in The Top of the World restaurant at the Stratosphere. We ascend the lofty heights in a double decker lift which moves so fast I need to equalise my ears on the way up. I ask the attendant what it’s like to go up and down all day long. She exhales, rolls her eyes and predictably replies with:
“Boring”
The conversation ends quite quickly and we exit the lift.
We are seated by the window and have an incredible view of the city of Las Vegas with the restaurant performing a whole rotation once every eighty minutes. We take our time viewing the sprawling mass of tungsten, neon and LEDs. There is truly no view like it in the world. An exceptional ocular treat, a celestials-eye view of the phenomenon that is Vegas at night. A totes romantic way to end on a very literal high.