From extravagant waterfront weddings to entertaining Elvis-themed ceremonies, adventurous skydiving unions, and even non-traditional drive-thru nuptials, Las Vegas, NV more than earns its title as the Marriage Capital of the World. With an average of about 115,000 weddings a year, nearly 1 in 20 weddings in America are hosted in Las Vegas.
The Las Vegas wedding industry flourishes for the same reasons that tourists like to visit Las Vegas and productions like to film here – the hospitality, plenty of accommodations, ease of travel to, from, and throughout the city, lovely year-round weather, and the fact that the possibilities are endless when it comes to creating amazing experiences and stories.
Wedding chapels are also about as abundant as casinos in Las Vegas. The city has about 50 wedding chapels, mostly around the Las Vegas Strip and Downtown Las Vegas area. Some of the wedding chapels are located inside casinos while others are stand-alone properties. The County Clerk’s office even opened up a temporary pop-up marriage license office at McCarran International Airport last month to help make it easier for couples to obtain their marriage licenses during the busy holidays (learn more).
Here are just three of many film-friendly wedding chapels located in Las Vegas:
Graceland Wedding Chapel
“wedding_chapel_graceland_a_storybook_chapel_1” by time anchor is licensed under CC BY 2.0
The Graceland Wedding Chapel was once a little house that was built in 1927. After Las Vegas marriage license laws were relaxed during the Depression, the city’s wedding industry boomed and in 1947, the front of this little house was converted into a wedding chapel.
The chapel was originally named McKee’s Gretna Green Wedding Chapel. In 1967, Elvis Presley knocked on the door of the chapel to drop by for a short visit. After Elvis’ death in 1977, McKee’s Gretna Green Wedding Chapel officially changed its name to Graceland Wedding Chapel in commemoration of Elvis Presley and his visit to their chapel.
Graceland Wedding Chapel has been featured in several productions including Fools Rush In, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Amazing Race, and many more!
Little Church of the West
“1755” by Rob Sinclair is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
Constructed in 1942, the Little Church of the West was the first facility in Las Vegas designed to be used specifically as a wedding chapel. Other wedding chapels at the time had been converted from buildings that had other purposes.
This wedding chapel has seen more celebrity marriages than any other wedding chapel in the world, and it has also been featured in the film Viva Las Vegas. The Little Church of the West is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places as the oldest existing structure on the Las Vegas Strip.
Wee Kirk o’the Heather Wedding Chapel
“wedding_chapel_wee_kirk_o_the_heather_2” by time anchor, used under CC BY 2.0 / Cropped from original
Built in 1925, the Wee Kirk is the original Las Vegas wedding chapel. Translated from Scottish, its name means “The Little Chapel of the Lucky Flowers.” It has been a continually operating wedding chapel since 1940, which makes it the oldest historical landmark wedding chapel in Las Vegas. It is the only Las Vegas wedding chapel that sits on a corner of the Las Vegas Strip where couples can take a photo and capture the iconic Strip street sign in the background (learn more).
If you are looking for more wedding chapels in Las Vegas or wedding chapels in Reno to use as a filming location, be sure to visit our Nevada Filming Locations Database or contact a local location manager/scout for further assistance! You can also find additional location support services in our online Nevada Production Directory.
Do you own a private property in Nevada that you would like to list as a filming location? Send us your location photos and be sure to include how your property is film-friendly!