Colour. Laughter. Desert Magic. These are just a few ways to describe today’s gorgeous vow renewal in Las Vegas! Brighton based photographer Lisa Devlin was travelling around LA and Vegas on a family holiday in October and Rebecca and Johnathan, also from the UK, decided it was an opportunity too good to miss and booked her to shoot their vow renewal at the same time! Talk about winning the jackpot!

They had their fun-filled ceremony at A Little White Wedding Chapel in their infamous Tunnel of Love. “Elvis was in full character the minute we arrived and made a fuss of us,” began Rebecca, “from helping with my shoes and asking what song we wanted him to sing, to going crazy when our photographer said she was called Lisa Marie!”

“Once we had completed the (brief) paperwork in the office, Elvis led us outside to where we’d be having our ceremony. The pink Cadillac is sat in The Tunnel of Love, an area just outside the office offering shade from the desert sun under a beautifully decorated curved roof. Elvis helped us both into the back of the Caddy and sang us our first song, Can’t Help Falling in Love (he absolutely nailed it, by the way!)”

The ceremony was performed by Minister Brian while myself and Jonathan said our vows looking up from the backseat of the convertible. Brian was such a lovely guy and really took time to focus on the love and friendship aspect of marriage. To be honest, we were both expecting it to feel like a conveyor belt wedding but both Brian and Elvis really made such an effort to get to know us and make us feel special. They made us feel like the only people in the world. After the ceremony, Elvis helped us out of the car and we jived happily away with him as he sang Little Less Conversation. It was perfect!”

After a few shots around the city they then all ventured out to the vivid Seven Magic Mountains which is a stunning art piece, just South of the Strip. With brightly coloured rocks and the glowing desert light its a photographer’s paradise and luck was obviously on their side again because they got it completely to themselves (believe me, this never happens! I’ve visited it myself and its usually crawling with tourists at all hours!)

Rebecca’s incredible pink gown came from eBay! She accessorised it with a blush veil (also an eBay find) Primark shoes and custom LAS VEGAS glittery shoe clips from Crown and Glory. “I knew I wanted my vow renewal dress to be pink but I didn’t want to spend a fortune”, she said. “I was so happy when I found this one on eBay for £108 from China! When you get a dress made in China it can be a total hit and miss but I saw the seller had great reviews and decided to take a chance. It arrived a month later and it looked just like the picture, which was actually pretty much like my original wedding dress (the one I wore on our wedding day) but a pale blush pink.”

Like so many couples, when they originally got married they ended up making quite a few compromises to keep other people happy, so both Rebecca and Jonathan knew that this time around their day was entirely for them. Rebecca explains, “When we were getting married the first time, we did the ‘big wedding’ with the long guest list and all the stress and complications that came with it. While we loved our first wedding (and we really did!), we would often long for a day that was just about us celebrating our love for each other without everything else that came with it. So when we decided the go to Vegas, we were really excited to get our vows renewed, and if you’re going to get married in Vegas, of course you’ve got to do it while sat in a pink Cadillac convertible getting serenaded by Elvis in the same place Britney Spears got drunk and married!”

“On the one hand, getting married in Vegas is a massive cliche. In fact, you only have to walk outside A Little White Wedding Chapel and look down the street at the countless other chapels to see just how cliched it is! But however many people had sat in that Cadillac before us, and however many songs Elvis may have sung, that day will forever be one of the most unique and special days of my life. There’s something about the fluorescent sex shop signs, the rugged Cactus plants and the scorching Nevada sunshine, all set against the magnificent backdrop of Vegas, that make for an unforgettable experience.”

Rebecca, a wedding photographer herself, had a pretty good idea how to plan their day in a fuss-free way, and they found the whole process of organising the Vegas trip really simple. “Working within the wedding industry myself I knew right away what stuff really matters on the day. I found the whole process really easy to organise through the chapel’s website. They had various packages and add on’s to select: Elvis, bouquet, flower buttonhole, Hawaiian themed Elvis! You can even stream your ceremony to everyone back home, yeah they’ve literally thought of everything! However what I will tell all other couples planning on a Vegas wedding is that the only things that survive your wedding day are the love, the rings and the photographs. Flowers will wilt, your dress will get trashed and the cake will get eaten but your rings, photos and video are your memories so make sure you invest in them.”