what it's really like to run off and get married in vegas
a breakdown of how we did it, why we did it, who was mad at us and what it actually cost
Standing in the waiting room of A Little White Chapel, a wedding venue famous for hosting weddings of couples like Lily Allen & David Harbour, JLo & Ben Affleck and Ross & Rachel, we couldn’t contain our nervous giggling. Just six months before this moment, Jonny had been down on one knee on a beach in West Wales. Less than a month later, we’d booked this $150 wedding ceremony in Vegas – with Elvis as our officiant.
Seven years earlier, we’d just met at the Christmas party of the dog food startup we’d just joined as interns in Richmond, London. I had just moved from South Wales and Jonny was still living at home on the outskirts of west London with his parents. Over the course of that night, we discovered that we both shared a very silly sense of humour, a (great) taste in music and a spark that would only get brighter (and harder to ignore) as our friendship progressed.
But for years, friends was all that we were. I was still in a relationship with my university boyfriend, and Jonny dated other people too. But eventually, breakups and several (some drunk, some sober) confessions of long-harboured feelings followed, and after four years of friendship and an accidental first offical date, we were together and couldn’t believe that anything else had ever made sense. After that date, I told my friend Sanya that I thought I might marry him.