Clark County celebrates its 'wedding capital' fame

Key Takeaways

A sea of white dresses and veils, show dancers, an Elvis impersonator, a Family Guy voice actor officiant — in traditional Vegas fashion, there was a lot going on — but amid all the flash, the nearly 300 couples who attended Clark County, Nev.’s vow renewal celebration only had eyes for each other. 

“You have all come here today with something in common — you are married,” said actor Patrick Warburton, the event’s officiant. “The fact that you’re here today shows that you haven’t just promised to live your marriage in an honorable estate, you have walked the walk.”

Diana and Charles Printzen got married at Las Vegas’ infamous Little White Wedding Chapel in 2022. The couple jumped at the opportunity to come back to Vegas to retie the knot, Diana said. 

“I think that love is the one thing we can all give, so that [vow] renewal ceremony, we couldn’t help it,” Diana said. “We wanted to be part of the love. We would get married over and over again, but there’s something special about getting married in Vegas. There’s a love in Vegas that you can’t find anywhere else in the world.”

JJ and Bill Snyder, who are now Clark County residents, had their 2009 wedding on a farm, but have always felt a special connection to Vegas. When the couple first started dating, they would often go to Vegas, and it was where their “romance could come alive,” JJ said. While Vegas is dubbed “Sin City,” the vow renewal event represented that sense of romance and was a testament to the beauty of evolving together as a couple, JJ said.

“Being in a room of other couples and celebrating love and celebrating partnership, it was really inspirational,” JJ said. “You had couples of all ages and at different stages of their life — it was really wholesome.

“And I don’t think that’s always what you think of when you think of ‘Las Vegas’ — you think of debauchery — but I was like ‘Wow, there are a lot of people who have strong partnerships and are celebrating their union.’ It was very cool.”

The event was hosted by the Clark County Clerk’s Office, in celebration of issuing its 5 millionth wedding license and Vegas’ 70-year anniversary of being “The Marriage Capital of the World,” as proclaimed by the London Daily Herald.

“One of the chapels that we work closely with said, ‘Well, it’s not really the 5 millionth wedding license — it’s 5 million love stories, and that’s where the concept came from,” said Clark County Clerk Lynn Goya. “In Las Vegas, weddings are so much a part of our history, that as a county clerk and the person who’s in charge of permanent public records for the county, that historical aspect really caught my interest, so I started wanting to capture as many of those 5 million love stories as possible.”

The county is working to create a wedding museum or memorial that will feature the stories of couples who have gotten married in Las Vegas, according to Goya. The Clerk’s Office is installing a kiosk at the Harry Reid International Airport for couples to share their stories, and from Feb. 11-25, it’s hosting a pop-up marriage license bureau at the airport.

Last year, around 53 million people visited Clark County, with roughly 4% of them visiting to get married. About 80% of couples who get married in Vegas are not from Nevada, and 20-25% of the out of state population is flying in internationally, so the Clerk’s Office saw it as an opportunity to partner with the airport and make the documentation process of getting married easier for couples, Goya said.

“It’s really fun when people fly in or walk around town in their wedding dress,” Goya said. “They just feel like stars because everybody’s so happy to see them and congratulate them.”

The annual marriage license bureau pop-up initiative launched in 2018 and brought in roughly $15 million in publicity in its first year alone, according to Goya. 

“Everybody just loved it,” Goya said. “The airport loved it. We love it. The couples love it. And it’s just really fun. It’s something that’s totally Vegas and unique to who we are.”

The Printzens are both first-generation Americans, and Vegas represented a movie-magic ideal of an American wedding to them. Diana wore an American flag dress at the vow renewal.

“We wanted to get married again and just celebrate our patriotism for the country that kind of saved our parents — they immigrated after World War II,” Diana said. “And it was just a celebration of love, and to share that with everyone — the ambiance and the love that was felt in that room was just really amazing.”

The couple dated briefly in the 1980s before Diana, a teen at the time, moved to Copenhagen with her mother. She came across Charles’ social media profile decades later, and reached out. After messaging back and forth, they knew they never wanted to spend another moment without each other, Diana said. 

“We never forgot each other,” Diana said. “When we reconnected, it was a matter of one day and he said, ‘Let’s go get married.’ And I said, ‘I agree.’”

A few weeks later, the couple went off to Vegas to get married — a New Year’s Eve wedding — with rings made out of an antique silver spoon.

“He’s my best friend,” Diana said. “I’ve known him forever, we can talk about anything — it’s a genuine love, genuine connection, we can be ourselves. It’s like marrying your childhood best friend — I’ve known him since I was like 8 years old. I used to play with his sister, I know his whole family. We lived on the same street, just like five houses down. 

“We had spiritually gotten married when I was 14, and he was like ‘I’m not going to lose you again.’”

Before the vow renewal, there was a brunch and a “Vegas through the decades” show, featuring performances that represented something someone would see in Vegas in each decade since it had been crowned as a wedding capital, according to JJ Snyder. After retying the knot, the couples had a champagne toast and were served a replica of the cake from Elvis and Priscilla Presley’s iconic Vegas wedding, made by Carlo’s Bakery (from the reality television show “Cake Boss”). 

Couples came from all over the world to attend the event. Celebrating the county’s status as the wedding capital of the world not only helps boost tourism, but it’s also part of preserving its history, Goya said.    

“Every love story is an interesting story,” Goya said. “And every one of them are really part of Las Vegas history and part of what helped turn a dusty frontier town that was all Western into the Las Vegas that we know and love today.”