Vegas Weddings may be Down but Royal Travel is Up

While December through February might be the season for love, according to the number of proposals that happen during the holidays and Valentine’s Day, but it seems the wedding capital of the US has actually seen a decline in couples exchanging wedding rings lately.

According to an article by the Associated Press, weddings in Las Vegas were at an almost all-time low in 2010, citing only 92,000 quickie weddings, for which Sin City is famous for, the fewest since 1993.  (Interestingly, 2004 was the peak year for Vegas weddings, with a total of 128,250.)

Although there can be an air of ‘tacky’ when one thinks of a stereotypical Vegas wedding, complete with drive-thru and Elvis officiators, but many vintage Hollywood couple have tied the knot in Vegas over the years.  Mia Farrow and Frank Sinatra posed for pictures at the Sands Hotel just moments after their Vegas ceremony on July 19, 1966.  In 1958 Paul Newman married Joanne Woodward at the El Rancho hotel-casino producing what turned out to be one of the most successful marriages in Hollywood.  And speaking of Elvis Presley, he famously married Priscilla at the Aladdin Hotel in 1967. 

Today however, some may claim that the decline in luxury travel over the past couple years could be to blame for the dip in Las Vegas weddings, an industry credited as a major part of the local tourism. 

A theory a bit hard to swallow when confronted with the exorbitant amount of travel expected for the week of UK’s royal wedding for Prince William and Kate Middleton.  Already, Euro star is reporting a 28 percent increase in bookings to London for the weekend of the royal wedding on April 29, compared to the same time last year.

If fact, according to ABC News, the British government’s tourism agency is predicting that about 1.1 million people will travel into London for the royal wedding.

Not everyone is excited for the big event though, and for those that have had enough already, British graphic designer Lydia Leith has been selling screen-printed souvenir sick bags on her website; the first batch of “Throne Up” bags which sold out in a flash.

Lydia assured the Huffing Post though that she was not anti-monarchist though.

 “The bags are just a bit of fun, a sort of antidote to the hysteria surrounding the wedding,” she told the news site.

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