airport weddings

Get your marriage license at the Las Vegas airport

 

You can play slot machines, smoke and get bottles of liquor to-go at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas.

And this year, from February 9 to 17, you’ll also be able to pick up a marriage license at a pop-up clerk’s office in the airport’s Terminal 1 baggage claim.

Getting married in Las Vegas is popular year-round, but the Clark County Clerk’s office reports that their downtown Las Vegas office gets a bit overwhelmed with couples seeking marriage licenses around Valentine’s Day and the Presidents’ Day Weekend.

This year the Chinese New Year (a lucky day to tie the knot) falls in the Valentine’s Day window (February 16) so the clerk’s office decided to open the pop-up office at the airport to make getting a marriage license faster and easier.

The shop will be open in the airport’s Terminal 1 baggage claim area 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. from Feb. 9 through Feb. 17 to issue marriage licenses only. Credit cards will be accepted for the $77 license fee.

Getting a marriage license doesn’t mean you’ll be married; but you’ll need that license if you want to make sure whatever sort of wedding ceremony you have in town is legally binding.

To ensure your Vegas marriage plans go smoothly, the clerk’s office encourages couples to go online before heading to Las Vegas to fill out a marriage license pre-application at the County website. (Select “Get a Marriage License” under “Popular Services” on the left side of the webpage.)

Once that pre-application is completed, a reference number will get issued.

Bring that to the temporary office at the airport, along with $77 and proper identification such as a driver’s license, passport, of one of the other forms of  identification listed on the Clerk’s Office web page, and you’re good to go.

Lovebirds that skip the airport marriage license shop can still show up at the Marriage License Bureau main office at 201 E. Clark St. in downtown Las Vegas. The office is on the south side of the Regional Justice Center, just three blocks south of the Fremont Street Experience and is open from 8 a.m. to midnight every day, including holidays.

Besides the novelty of getting your marriage license at the airport, here’s another reason to fill out the pre-application and get that paperwork taken care of before you head into town: you’ll save time.

In Las Vegas the Marriage License Bureau, a division of the Clerk’s Office, issues about 80,000 marriage licenses annually and regularly issues more than 1,500 marriage licenses during the days leading up to and including Valentine’s Day.

 

Love is in the air at Stockholm’s Arlanda Airport

Throughout the year, Stockholm’s Arlanda Airport is a pretty lovey-dovey place.

marriage ceremony at Stockholm Arlanda

Last Thursday morning, I stopped by the airport chapel just as chaplain Anders Berglund was finishing up a short marriage ceremony for Melitza and Frank Kortman (below).  After chit-chat and champagne, the couple set off for their honeymoon in Bali and Berglund explained that this was the second of three weddings he’d be presiding over that day and just a few of the more than 200 weddings that take place at the airport chapel each year.

Wedding at Stockholm Airport

More than 200 Swedish marriages begin with ceremonies at the airport’s VIP lounge as well.

Wedding at Stockholm Airport VIP Lounge

The folks at Guinness World Records may not be keeping tabs, but I’m pretty sure more wedding ceremonies take place at Stockholm’s Arlanda than at any other airport.

That’s all very romantic. But on Monday, Arlanda is going to be the starting point for what is certainly a world first in weddings.

On Monday morning, December 6, 2010, one of the business class cabins on SAS fligh SK903 from Stockholm to New York will be transformed into a wedding chapel in preparation for the world’s first in-flight, same-sex weddings.

One gay couple and one lesbian couple – winners of a spirited, record-breaking, on-line contest that took place over the last few months – will be married when the plane takes off and while it is still in Swedish airspace. Once the legal business is completed, there will be an in-flight reception, complete with wedding dinner, wedding cake, first dances  and other traditional, and no doubt some non-traditional, wedding celebrations.

I’ll be attending the in-flight weddings as a media guest and will share more details once the flight arrives in New York.

In the meantime, you can read more about the contest and winning couples on the SAS website, where there’s also information about the flowers, the wedding bands and the wedding outfits.

Souvenir Sunday at Stockholm’s Arlanda Airport

Stockholm’s Arlanda Airport serves more than 16 million passengers a year with 4 terminals and amenities that include a Sky Clinic, a chapel that hosts more than 200 weddings a year and hotels that range from the short stay “Rest and Fly” to the full-service Radisson Blu Sky City Hotel, which looks out over the transportation and marketplace hub between two terminals.

The Jumbo Stay sits on airport property, just off one of the taxi-ways, and is a unique hostel-style hotel built inside a converted 747.

The airport has more than 100 retail and dining venues, and on my recent 24-hour stay at the airport, I found plenty of items to feature on Souvenir Sunday, the day StuckatTheAirport.com highlights inexpensive, offbeat and “of” the city items you can buy at airports.

The choices included Swedish Herring gift packs and lots of other traditional food items;

and a wide variety of reindeer-inspired items and Lapland souvenirs.

But my choice for this week’s Souvenir Sunday favorites are the inexpensive, brightly-colored sporks and collapsible cups for sale at Terminal 5’s branch of Design Torget .

collapsible cups

If you find a great, inexpensive, “of” the city souvenir next time you’re Stuck at the Airport, please snap a photo and send it along. If your souvenir is featured on Souvenir Sunday, you’ll receive a fun air travel souvenir.