Alabama trucker in Las Vegas to get hitched on Valentine’s Day

Somewhere on the road from Alabama to Seattle, their love bloomed in the cab of his semitractor-trailer.

Last June, Gary Overstreet invited Felecia Ardis to accompany him on a delivery from their home state to the Pacific Northwest. According to the professional long-haul truck driver, it was a smooth ride.

“We were on the road 17 days, and we never once argued, not even about where we were going to eat,” Overstreet said. “I figured she was the one.”

The two lovebirds traveled west once again last week, but the trip wasn’t over when Overstreet dropped off his 45,000-pound load of plastic in Arizona.

They drove on to Las Vegas, rented a room at the Wild Wild West and purchased a marriage license. On Tuesday, as Overstreet turns 51, an Elvis Presley impersonator will hitch them at the Graceland Wedding Chapel downtown.

“I thought it would be a nice birthday present for him,” Ardis, 46, said of the trip.

The couple is far from alone. Clark County Clerk Lynn Goya said the week leading up to Valentine’s Day is one of the busiest times of the year for the county’s marriage license bureau.

“The average number of licenses we issue is just over 200 a day,” she said Monday. “We expect over 400 today.”

As of 5 p.m. Monday, the clerk’s office reported issuing more than 1,500 marriage licenses in the last week.

Olivia Alfonso, a manager at the Viva Las Vegas wedding chapel, said her business is prepared for a busy holiday. Close to 40 weddings are booked, most of them for tourists and many performed by the chapel’s own Elvis look-alikes.

“We rarely get locals,” she said. “It’s mostly out of the country or out of town.”

Contact Michael Scott Davidson at sdavidson@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3861. Follow @davidsonlvrj on Twitter.