On Wednesday, couples from around the world flocked to Las Vegas to tie the knot on a date they won’t be able to mark again until 2016.
The calendar quirk that makes Leap Day possible only once every four years also means a big boom in business for Las Vegas wedding chapels. Around the city, brides-to-be in long white dresses and grooms in tuxedos gathered at chapels and at the Clark County Marriage License Bureau downtown.
“People always like a memorable day,” said Cliff Evarts, owner of Vegas Weddings, who compared Leap Day to other popular wedding days like Nov. 11, 2011 (11-11-11), and Oct. 10, 2010 (10-10-10). Evarts estimated he’d see up to 50 weddings throughout Leap Day, about five times more than a typical weekday.
The scene Wednesday at chapels was a mix of excitement and anxiousness, filled with typical pre-wedding jitters, including last-minute dress alterations, phone calls to family members and a frantic search for the ring-bearer’s pillow.
Avenancios Gonzalez and his fiancée, Angela, had planned to get married in June in a large, traditional ceremony, but last week they decided to do something different.
So the New York couple packed Angela’s wedding dress, hopped on a plane and came to Las Vegas for a Leap Day wedding.
“We planned Vegas in two days. We decided we didn’t want a big wedding,” Angela said.
Getting married on Leap Day, she said, will make for an interesting story.
“When I’m old, I want to be able to tell people I’ve only been married 10 years. I think that would be fun,” she said.
Dealing with the influx of Leap Day weddings means a long day and extra staffing, but Viva Las Vegas chapel owner Ron Decar said Wednesday was business as usual, even though there were about 30 more ceremonies scheduled than on a normal day.
He said Las Vegas’ reputation as a “simple and easy” place to get married made it a destination, and the uniqueness of Leap Day helped create special memories for couples.
“It’s a day that only comes around once in a while,” he said. “Some people like that they don’t have an anniversary to worry about every year. People forget about those a lot.”
Figuring out how to celebrate an anniversary that only comes around twice a decade was a question on most couples’ minds, and several solutions emerged.
“We’re going to celebrate on Feb. 28 and on March 1,” Sandor Malnor of Florida said shortly after he wed his new bride, Anita.
"I'm leaving it up to (my wife-to-be) to pick when she wants to celebrate," Californian Sidney Poe said as he stood blindfolded in the lobby at the Viva Vegas chapel, waiting for his ceremony to begin. “We can do Feb. 28 or March 1. Or maybe both.”
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