In Defense of Vegas Weddings

In "Marrying Absurd," Joan Didion criticizes Las Vegas Weddings for their tackiness and insincerity. She admittedly does an excellent job of painting a vivid picture of the brides in "orange minidress[es]" and the "stained-glass paper windows" that represent how truly cheap and meaningless these marriages can be. However, she fails to consider the positive sides to the Vegas Wedding, of which I think there are many, depending on the circumstances.

First off, I must clarify that those who spontaneously decide to get married after a night of drinking really are not the ones I'm defending.  While these marriages may sometimes end up working out, I must admit that these are almost never a good idea and under these specific circumstances, I would have to mostly agree with Didion.

However, there are other situations where the Vegas Quickie Wedding may be the perfect choice.  For a couple that is sure that they want to spend the rest of their lives together, but don't have the money for a big wedding, the Las Vegas Wedding is a cheap and easy way to make it official without breaking the bank.  For a couple that is madly in love and feels that the love they have is special enough without having to deal with all of the extra wedding hoopla, Vegas is the perfect place to have a nice, private wedding and then go enjoy some quality vacation time with the one you love. And lastly, for a couple that is entering their Golden Years and maybe is on their 2nd or 3rd marriage, they would want nothing more than to just hop in their car and hit the drive thru marriage stand on their way home so they could just get the formality over with and get on to spending all the years they have left with the one they truly love.