I sent out my Christmas card to you all this morning and forgot to mention the reason for my name change. Consequently I got a LOT of emails back with everyone asking me what is up with the name change? So here is the story....Hope you have a good laugh!
Enjoy!
As some of you know I had just taken a short 4 day vacation a couple of weeks ago to Las Vegas with my other half. (By the way FYI, we have been together for 14 years and we have Jacey our daughter who is now going on 8 years old and we just never got married over the years!) While we were there to get away and spend some quality time together, we decided to get married literally at the spur of the moment! Just like that! Isn't that a big part of what Vegas is all about anyway?? Of course we called our daughter first and asked her blessing and she was excited except that she wanted to be there too so she could wear a Princess dress... After we promised a party/reception at home later and a new dress for the occasion, she was really excited for us.
We thought, we are here so lets just do it! Since we are going to do it in Vegas (so not my Style...) lets make it as cheesy as possible! I wanted Elvis to preform the ceremony and get married at the Graceland Chapel. (Yep we are both huge Elvis fans!). Doesn't get much cheesier than that right? Elvis-Vegas-Wedding. That sounds about right. We went to Graceland Chapel to see what it took to get married by Elvis. Found out Elvis doesn't really marry you-he is there and he walks you down the isle and sings a couple of songs and gives you away but doesn't actually marry you.... what??? Major bummer!
They sent us to the court house to apply for our license and told us to call for an appt. if we wanted Elvis to be there. We headed to the court house and on the way into the Court house about 5 different people handed us flyers for different types of Chapels with different perks. I didn't want any perks, I wanted to just get married!! We can't have a real big deal wedding with perks without our daughter with us! I want cheesy people, how hard can that be-we are in Vegas where anything goes right??
We got the license in about 10 minutes and then decided to head back out to get something to eat-it was lunch time. We wanted to head up the strip to do some more sight seeing and shopping too. Kind of forgot we were trying to get married and we still hadn't decided how or when we wanted to do it yet.... So on the drive back to the strip we realized we needed rings to get married. Hello- cant forget rings!! Do you really need them to get married in Vegas? Buy rings in Las Vegas? At a jeweler? Where are the jewlery stores anyway? I don't think so! We will buy good rings when we go on our next cruise to the Caribbean cruise! Bling bling! Duty free of course and save lots of money on them! We aren't dumb! We ARE CRUISERS, we know better!!!!! So we stopped downtown "Old" Vegas after remembering we saw a stand there the night before that made these cool rings with your names carved into them. Anyway, after getting our rings made, we headed for the strip again. Since we were driving through downtown to get back to the strip, we thought -lets just do it right now and get it done. This is turning into effort and I don't want any effort- we are here to relax and have fun! That is when I decided If we're doing this Cheesy lets do it Super Super Cheesy! Since Elvis cant actually marry us -and I didn't want to walk down any isle or anything, lets try one of the drive through wedding Chapels because there is no way it could be any more Cheesier than that! -right? Well we found Special Memories Drive Through Chapel-and drove through there. As we were laughing asking how to do this from a girl who opened the window, she went and got the Minister(or whatever he was) and he leaned out the window and married us! Hilarious! Simple! Quick! Fun! and most of all CHEESY CHEESY!!!
Thats our Wedding story!
For those of you in shock that I got married anywhere other than on a Cruise Ship, Yes we will renew vows or something onboard one day! You all know that it will just to happen that way!!
In the meantime, I now have Richards for my last name (hence the name change that you all noticed) and Jacey is a very Happy Camper that mommy and daddy are finally married and that she will get her chance wear a Princess dress when we have our big Party/Reception this Summer.....
What a way to end our 2009 with some real Fun and Excitement!
Dream With Your Eyes Wide Open...
Mrs. Valerie Richards
