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Field Notes: Elvis Remains a Fixture at Las Vegas Weddings

Elvis Presley is dead, but he's still extremely busy.

Elvis is king of a growing cast of celebrity wedding officiants dressed in character.

With millennials and Gen Xers now in their prime marriage years, the days of trotting out a fake Elvis to officiate at Las Vegas wedding chapel would seemingly be long gone. Not so, said Ron DeCar, a performer and owner of Viva Las Vegas Weddings.

"When I started this business in 1999, we did 13 weddings a month," said Mr. DeCar, 58, whose company specializes in themed weddings featuring Elvis and other celebrity impersonators as officiants, and traditional weddings. "Now we do over 500. Half of those are Elvis requests and 100 are themed."

GigMasters, an event marketplace based in Norwalk, Conn., can also attest to the latest popularity of Elvis for couples. From January 2013 to December 2014, it had 184 requests for impersonators to officiate weddings across the United States and fully 94 percent of them wanted an Elvis.

With a rotating staff of performers, Mr. DeCar's company also offers officiants who come dressed as Austin Powers, James Bond, Batman, the Blues Brothers and members of the band Kiss. Characters from "Star Trek" are also popular. Almost anyone can go online and obtain a near-instant "ordination" that allows them to legally officiate in most states.

The promise of a "Star Trek" theme wedding recently attracted Nicolas Berthier, 33, and Gilles Henisse, 48, to Las Vegas from their native France.

"France is too serious and ceremonial — we didn't want that," said Mr. Berthier, who stood by Mr. Henisse's side in the small chapel in Las Vegas, where their best man was dressed as a Minion and their maid of honor appeared in a purple bunny suit. Smoke billowed from machines clouding the air while the theme from "Star Trek" filled the room. The curtain lifted as Mr. DeCar, costumed as Spock, stepped forward.

"Marriage is highly illogical," the Spock character said before asking the couple: "Do you promise to let your heart be strong, to let it overcome life's obstacles? To boldly love as no two have loved before?"

Both men agreed. Vows were exchanged in French. Tears were shed. "Being married in Vegas is simple and funny," said Mr. Berthier, a writer who was clearly overjoyed with this Las Vegas experience even as he acknowledged that they are not legally married under French law. "Here you can do anything you can imagine."

The grand total for this experience was $6,000, which included two plane tickets, hotel, food and entertainment for eight, cake, champagne and the 30-minute ceremony. (Guests paid for their own travel and housing.)

Are these ceremonies being played for laughs? Perhaps. For most, however, they are the real thing disguised as entertainment.

Dustin Kidd, an associate professor of sociology at Temple University in Philadelphia, and author of "Pop Culture Freaks: Identity, Mass Media, and Society," said these kinds of weddings have become an extension of t he nerd culture, which has grown over the last decade.

"People are connecting romance to nerd stories like 'Lord of the Rings' or 'Star Trek,' " he said. "It makes sense they'd want to carry that over into real life, which is why they're gravitating toward weddings where you become a participatory part of the story."

For the couple, a connection to the subject is very appealing. For others, it offers affordability, less planning and a fairly stress-free experience, experts said.

Robert Thompson, a professor of pop culture at Syracuse University, said, "It's so deeply rooted in our minds that this is what we to want to have: the opulent event, the big white dress, the large party."

But each generation beginning with the baby boomers has moved away from traditional ceremonies, he added. "Even though the boomers chipped away at traditional weddings, and X'ers chipped away at it a little more," he said. "Millennials are chipping away at it the most."

When Hawaii blends into Mexico, and Mexico morphs into Miami, themed weddings become extremely memorable, not to mention personal.

Lia Batkin, a founder of In the Know Experiences, a Virtuoso travel agency in New York, said millennials and X'ers are "trying to find ways to express themselves and make weddings their own."

"They don't want to please their parents," she said. "When they do, they realize they aren't getting the weddings they wanted."

A key element at work, these specialists say, is that the couples, some in their late 20s and early 30s, are paying so they can make the decisions. They recognize, Ms. Batkin said, that whoever pays for the event gets to make the decisions about how the wedding will look, sound and feel.

And the cost can be reasonable. Renting an Elvis officiant from Viva Las Vegas comes with nine different packages. For $350, for instance, you get an Elvis who sings two songs and performs the ceremony, r ose bouquets photos of the event, video, music, an Elvis certificate, a wedding coordinator, sedan transportation for the couple and your names lit up on the company's marquee.

"Something that's different like a themed wedding grabs people's attention," said Alex Choi, 27, who lives in California and has been to more than 10 weddings, include one with a "Lord of the Rings" theme. "It was the fun, theatrical, and they got married the way they wanted to, and it was still very beautiful and special," he said."Some don't want to make it religious, they don't want the traditional route," he said.

The prevalence of YouTube and other online media is heavily influencing the wedding choices others in his generation are making. "Social media l ets you share an experience with as many people as possible while having the loudest voice as you do it," he said.

Starting in January, "Zumanity," the most sexually charged show of the Cirque du Soleil portfolio, will offer wedding packages in Las Vegas at the New York New York Hotel. "People want to be part of something unique that still has meaning," said Pierre Parisien, the show's senior artistic director.

The show's mistress of sensuality, the drag queen Christopher Kenney, can marry couples midday and at that evening's performance; the wedding couple and their friends will attend the show and be introduced to the audience as newlyweds.

"Now that everyone can marry," Mr. Parisien said, "we want to offer a way for people to celebrate their love, because that's what 'Zumanity' is about."

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