Officials’ ideas mixed on vow renewal certificates

The Hardys and the Strait-Hinnerichsens came to town from Nova Scotia this weekend for that quintessentially Las Vegas joy ride: Elvis-officiated dual 10th anniversary wedding vow renewals after the two wives entered the chapel in a pink Cadillac.

"We thought, what better way to do this than to go all out and really do it up," said Hendrick Strait-Hinnerichsen, who lives with his wife, Lisa, in Halifax.

He hedged, however, on whether he thought "all out" would also include a trip to the Marriage Bureau for a Clark County-issued keepsake vow renewal certificate, if such a document were available for about $50.

"That's a tough call," he said. "It could go either way," he said.

Tim Hardy, though, was ready to go.

"It sounds like fun to me," said Hardy, who came with his wife, Claudette, from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.

With the nearly 92,000 wedding licenses issued last year marking a 28 percent drop from the 2004, and the slide continuing this year, some in the wedding industry have started to push a semiofficial vow renewal certificate as a route to revitalize the business. Although a certificate would have no legal standing, it would be a framable memento issued by the Clark County Clerk's Office.

"We see a lot of folks coming from Europe for vow renewals that want something official but they can't get it," said Joni Moss, the head of the Nevada Wedding Association, an arm of the Nevada Commission on Tourism. "I know it sounds crazy, but we get those requests."

Cliff Evarts, owner of Vegas Weddings, conceived of the certificate with much broader ambitions.

"Las Vegas has periodically reinvented itself," he said. "And we could use the certificate to make this the vow renewal capital of the world. It would be a great way to help reinvigorate the economy."

But others in the wedding industry are, at best, indifferent to the idea. The Alexis Park resort does relatively few vow renewals, catering and convention sales manager Jerri Sandman said, although the renewals account for a significant percentage of the business at some independent chapels. She doubted that a certificate would change much.

"Anything that would produce more revenue is good for everybody," she said. "But my gut feeling is that it wouldn't be a big trend."

One vow renewal at Alexis Park this weekend includes children and grandchildren, she said.

"It's all for them," she said. "Who cares about a certificate?"

A fault line has already opened over how a certificate would be implemented. Evarts wants it to be a mandatory part of a renewal ceremony because making optional "would take the buzz out."

Ron Decar, the owner of Viva Las Vegas wedding chapel, where the Nova Scotians did their renewals, flatly opposes a certificate requirement.

"I can guarantee you that every other chapel would opposed it on that basis, too," he said.

A slow economy has already made couples more reluctant to spend $299 on a renewal package. Adding a $50 renewal certificate charge on top of it would just drive away more customers, he said.

Chapels now generally create their certificates, often in several different versions depending on the ceremony.

Clark County Clerk Diana Alba said county lawyers have determined that the certificate must be optional because it would have no official function. It would be similar to the souvenir certificates the county now issues in addition to the black-and-white forms for the official license and certificate.

Thanks to the sophistication of graphic design software, she said, it would be cheap and quick to create a renewal certificate.

"Weddings and vow renewals are a big part of the tourist industry, so we are going to pursue this," she said. "The renewal certificates could make it just a little bit nicer."

She doubts, however, that sales will amount to more than a small fraction of the wedding certificates.

Her office will oversee a July 28 industry meeting to explain the proposal and assuage fears about potential side effects. A final proposal could reach the Board of County Commissioners in about three months, she estimates.

However, she doesn't expect to branch into other types of quasiofficial certificates, such as for same-sex commitments.

"This is something new and we want to keep it clean and simple at first," she said. "We don't want to create the confusion that could come" from issuing commitment certificates when gay marriage is forbidden under state law.

Contact reporter Tim O'Reiley at
toreiley@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5290.