Did you attend the wedding of controversial ex-NBA player Dennis Rodman to bombshell entertainer Carmen Electra at the Chapel of the Flowers in Las Vegas? Did you “miss” your own wedding, perhaps being a bit too tipsy to properly take it all in? Or maybe you have the urge to soon get married in Las Vegas, but get a case of uncontrollable itching and hives when contemplating a visit to a chapel?
Have no fear, for here’s your opportunity for a vicarious semi-holy redemption.
Released on the heels of TLC’s super buzzed “Jon & Kate Plus 8” reality TV show, the cable channel premiered Friday their newest reality show, “Happily Ever Faster.”
It’s Las Vegas kitsch at its lively – and extraordinary – best, documenting weekly the wedding trials and tribulations of the Chapel of the Flowers, located in downtown Las Vegas, Nevada– the city long-recognized as being the distinctive destination “Wedding Capital of the World.”
The multimillion-dollar family-run Chapel of the Flowers has been in the wedding business for almost 60 years. The husband and wife team of Jason and Holly and their staff marry over 5,000 couples a year, routinely running around like possessed demons (the good kind), spewing forth married couples faster and better than hamburgers fly off the grill at fast-food hamburger joints.
Amid it all, somehow the staff retains their sanity and even their zest for Las Vegas weddings, offering a tasteful approach to matrimony that sets them apart from many chapels on the Strip.
Punctuated with “Oh my God!” “Holy crap!” and “Hustle, hustle!” utterances, Chapel of the Flowers wedding planner Melody approaches each wedding with boundless energy and a unique breath of fresh air- despite many wedding couples not bringing their tuxes, dresses – even rings – on their wedding day; hearing the same old stories from wedding couples ad infinitum, but acting like it’s the first time; and rectifying one mess after another- all the while proving, though, that stereotypical Las Vegas kitschy wedding dramas can be indeed transformed with panache in a heartbeat into an elegant affair. Melody appears to effortlessly eat, sleep and breathe weddings, meeting five to 12 couples or more in person daily, and gets the job done quickly and efficiently under the most severe time constraints.
More than merely documenting 15-minute quickie wedding packages – with an Elvis impersonator thrown in for good measure from time to time – “Happily Ever Faster” explores Chapel of the Flowers wedding services which are also sometimes performed off the Las Vegas Strip (yes, believe it or not, there is more to Las Vegas than one-armed bandits and gawdy neon).
And while other wedding reality television shows may have an occasional to or from Sin City visit, this is the only wedding show so far that is based in Las Vegas.
With the Las Vegas wedding industry facing economic challenges [as reported by Las Vegas Backstage Access on January 11 and June 20], the show may prove to be just the stimulus ticket needed to aid Las Vegas’ wedding tourism- and ancillary wedding support businesses, as well.
So, if your champagne flute hasn’t spilled over with the plethora of wedding reality television shows, including We classics “Bridezilla”, “Rich Bride, Poor Bride,” or “My Platinum Wedding,” TNT’s “Wedding Day,” or CW’s “Hitched or Ditched,” – and approximately 13 other current wedding shows (and that’s not counting all the additional wedding dress, cake and accessory television show spin-offs!) – then consider taking a break from watching Kate Gosselin’s spankings and Jon and Kate’s dual infidelity flaps, by checking out this half-hour show that starts at 7:30 p.m. (PT) Friday’s on TLC. It could quite possibly be your “cuvee champagne” television offering.
Vegas Backstage Access (VBA) 