Ryan always wanted to get married in Vegas and luckily for him, when he ran it by his fiancé Beth she was up for it too! They travelled from New Zealand with 20 of their closest friends and family – 8 of them even went with them on the honeymoon to Hawaii!
“Beth is a full time burlesque entertainer and lounge singer and my background is in theatre too, although I’m now mainly a web designer”, explained the groom. “I really wanted to get married in Las Vegas, so Beth chose the date to fall on her 25th birthday, I think so I couldn’t possibly forget either event ever.”
“We had about 20 people at the wedding in total, and 8 of them travelled with us the whole way, including coming to Hawaii for the honeymoon. The dress code was sequins because Beth is practically a magpie. Everyone wore a sequin dress or white, and the girls all put bright colour in their hair to complement her bright pink hair. Even my mother in law coloured her hair bright purple.”
Beth wore a stunning sequinned dress from Jovani. “My favourite part of the whole experience was my beautiful bride”, he continued. “I could have cared less about anything else that happened that day as soon as I realised she was mine forever. I think Beth would say the same about me. Our biggest expense was our photographer, of course, because having beautiful images was our number one priority. The dress(es) ended up costing more than we anticipated too because Beth had had a champagne gold sequin dress made in NZ, but the day before the wedding (literally) in Vegas she was shopping for wedding shoes, and I got a phone call from her in tears because she’d walked past a shop full of sequins and realised that there was a dress inside which she absolutely had to wear or the world would end. So I did what any smart man would do and told her to just buy it. So each of those dresses cost around $1500 NZD, but that’s a lot cheaper than the alternative…the wrath of your wife!”
“However our biggest saving was not having a reception. By going overseas we only had our very very close friends and family with us, plus we got to have a Hawaiian honeymoon on the way home. Because everyone was travelling in such a tight little group we felt it was unnecessary to have a specific reception dinner. The whole trip was our reception, really. People seem to think that going overseas costs you more, but living in NZ everything is far away. Hawaii was the place I really wanted to take her on honeymoon anyway, so we would’ve spent the money going overseas for that either way; it was only a few hundred more to get tickets to Vegas and have the wedding there instead of NZ.”
“My advice for future brides and grooms would be that the day really does go by super fast”, Ryan concluded. “And you don’t need to spend money on tiny details. No one will miss them. I promise. Also, I advise letting your wife plan everything but if it goes off amazingly, take at least half the credit. It’ll drive her nuts, but the best way to ensure a long marriage is to both be a little crazy!”
“I’m so lucky that I have married my best friend. I love her so much, even though I totally hijacked her glory with this questionnaire. She was really excited to be featured on this blog. The least I could do was answer these questions and tell the whole world that I’m the happiest man alive because I get to grow old with her and be by her side forever. Plus now I look really romantic.”
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- Photography: Nisha Ravji Photography
- Venue: MGM Forever Grand Chapel, Las Vegas
- Bride's Dress: Jovani
- Bride's Jewellery: Forever New
- Hair & Make Up: Christophe Salon