Starting off married life is a gamble but getting hitched in
Sin City ultimately means getting ditched. We look at short-lived wedded bliss of celebrities who took vows there.
The list of celebrity Las Vegas brides and grooms reads like the Hollywood Walk of Fame: Paul Newman, Frank Sinatra, Joan Collins, Diana Ross, Jon Bon Jovi, Steffi Graf, Brigitte Bardot, Axl Rose, Richard Gere, Melanie Griffith, Clint Eastwood, Angelina Jolie, David Cassidy, Bette Midler, Britney Spears, Noel Gallagher and Zsa Zsa Gabor to name a few.
And while the celebrity marriage has a history of being short-lived, whether vows are taken in Sin City or otherwise, it would seem there is a fine old tradition of failed marriages in Las Vegas, stretching back as long as those with celebrity-fixated memories can recall. More often than not the spur-of-the-moment joining of hearts and minds is doomed for failure.
Peaches Geldof's marriage in Las Vegas is already following the time-honoured tradition of such unions: she has returned to London without her new husband.
All the available information on this perfectly formed vignette hints at a union in which speed was of the essence as Peaches had known her new husband, Max Drummey, for just four weeks.
The bride-to-be told her father of her plans two hours beforehand and was almost certainly influenced in her choice of location by the fact that her father, Bob, married her mother, Paula Yates, there. Geldof and Yates were one of the few couples who bucked the Las Vegas trend, staying together long enough to raise a family - that is, until they divorced in 1996.
Shortly after his Live Aid support efforts for Ethiopia - a crusade which earned him a knighthood - former Boomtown Rats singer Geldof wed Yates at the Little Church of the West on June 21, 1986, with Duran Duran frontman Simon Le Bon as best man. They divorced in 1996 and she was later engaged to INXS singer Michael Hutchence, but he died before they could marry. Yates died in 2000.
Spin
But where they "made it" (for a while), others have discovered that plighting one's troth in this den of iniquity is about as reliable as a spin on one of the local roulette tables.
Tarzan actor Johnny Weissmuller was one of the first celebrities to have a Las Vegas wedding in 1933 and today over 120,000 couples head for the Nevada gambling resort every year in order to get married - plus a few who get wed on the spur of the moment.
Numerous Las Vegas wedding chapels and hotels cater for the marriages, and it's possible to get married in places ranging from the Graceland Wedding Chapel, complete with Elvis impersonator, through to the grandeur of the Grand Canyon, a helicopter ride away.
Actor Mickey Rooney has definitely contributed to Vegas' wedding capital status, walking down the aisle in Sin City for seven of his eight marriages. His foray into Vegas weddings began in 1944 with Betty Jane Rase in 1944 - a marriage which lasted five years.
Following their divorce, he said, "I do," to Martha Vickers in 1949. But wedded bliss didn't last long, and the couple divorced after two years. In 1952, Rooney married again, this time to Elaine Mahnken.
The couple divorced after six years, and Rooney then married Barbara Ann Thompson in 1958, a marriage which ended in tragedy when Thompson was murdered in 1966. Following Thompson's death, Rooney exchanged nuptials with Thompson's friend Marge Lane in 1967.
The marriage was Rooney's shortest, lasting only 100 days, and in 1969 Rooney was a marrying man once again, this time to Carolyn Hockett, followed by divorce five years later. Rooney took his last walk down the aisle in 1978 when he married his current wife, Jan Chamberlin.
Shortest marriage
Britney Spears sent up her first distress flare when getting hitched to Jason Allen Alexander on the spur of a squiffy moment.
Spears had her surprise marriage annulled less than 55 hours after tying the knot with her childhood friend at a Las Vegas chapel.
The singer married Alexander on Saturday morning, after a night out in Las Vegas. Luckily, her lawyers immediately filed for an annulment by the courts.
Spears, aged 22 at the time, was reported to have wed Alexander, who she grew up with in Louisiana, wearing jeans and baseball cap.
British actress Billie Piper and DJ Chris Evans also chose the city of eternal optimism in 2001 after going on a bender. The marriage lasted an impressive three years before they decided to be just good friends.
On October 6, 2007, Pamela Anderson and Rick Salomon, the co-star in the Paris Hilton sex video, tied the knot during a 90-minute break in a magic show Anderson was doing - it lasted two months before being annulled on the grounds of "fraud".
The former Baywatch star, 40, cited irreconcilable differences in papers filed at a Los Angeles court.
Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thornton breezed into town, got hitched, breezed out, and got unhitched again. On May 5, 2000, with a visible "Billy Bob" tattoo on her upper arm, Jolie wed Pushing Tin her co-star Thornton in a 20-minute ceremony at the Little Church of the West. The couple, who were famous for wearing vials of each other's blood around their necks, both wore blue jeans for the ceremony but the marriage, the fifth for Thornton and second for Jolie, ended in divorce in 2003.
A union of more lasting significance was that between Noel Gallagher and Meg Mathews, but that was back in 1997 and times were more innocent then. And it still didn't last.
In June 1997, the couple married at the Little Church of the West while an Elvis impersonator performed, and Beatles music was played quietly on a piano.
Surprised
What's Vegas without a Rat Pack wedding? Frank Sinatra, then 50, wed Mia Farrow, then 21, in a private ceremony at the Sands on July 16, 1966. And when it came to breaking up, Sinatra certainly did it his way. Farrow was surprised with divorce papers in front of everyone on the set of Rosemary's Baby. The Hollywood couple's divorce was finalised in 1968.
After a romantic 4am proposal of "marry me or I'll kill myself" from Guns N' Roses front man Axl Rose, Erin Everly drove straight to Vegas to save Rose's life. The daughter of rocker Don Everly exchanged vows with Rose on April 28, 1990, at Cupid's Wedding Chapel.
Just three weeks after tying the knot, Rose filed for divorce from Everly, his inspiration for his song Sweet Child O' Mine. However, the couple reconciled only to have the marriage finally annulled less than a year later.
The list continues with acting supercouple Bruce Willis and Demi Moore. They were wed in Vegas on November 21, 1987 after meeting at a screening of Stakeout, featuring Demi's former fiance, actor Emilio Estevez. The couple split 11 years later but remain friends.
On August 15, 2004, fashion designer Nicky Hilton wed money manager Todd Andrew Meister at the Vegas Wedding Chapel at 2.30am. Tabloid princess Paris Hilton and gal-pal actress Bijou Phillips were present to witness the early morning ceremony and it was reported Paris' dog, Tinkerbell wore a tiara and carried the ring pillow. The marriage ended after less than two months.
When you think of Vegas weddings, who springs to mind? He might now be there only spirit (and impersonations), but 41 years ago, the King himself got hitched there.
Elvis Presley, then 32, reportedly the highest-salaried entertainer in the world, married Priscilla Anne Beaulieu, 21, at the Aladdin Hotel on May 1, 1967. It was the first marriage for both and the couple wed in a quiet ceremony in the owner's suite at 9am.
The Memphis troubadour and his bride-to-be landed at McCarran Airport early in the morning and drove with friends to county courthouse where they obtained their marriage license at 3.30am. Following the ceremony, attended by a few relatives and close friends, an elaborate banquet was held just below the hotel's casino with an estimated 100 people in attendance.
But it's not just film and music stars who head for Vegas. Colourful Chicago Bulls star Dennis Rodman married Baywatch actress Carmen Electra (real name is Tara Patrick) at Little Chapel of the Flowers in 1998.
Rodman reportedly tried to have the marriage annulled, claiming he was drunk at the ceremony, but Electra countered Rodman's comments had been taken out of context and that they were truly in love. The marriage finally ended in 1999.
Maybe it's the appeal of getting married in the middle of nowhere, maybe it's the fact you don't have worry about months of stressful planning or maybe it's the fact that it will inevitably save you wads of your hard-earned cash. The drawback is that there's nothing else to do except gamble and take in a show, and the thrill soon wears off.
That is why weddings made in Vegas don't last: the participants are thrown instantly upon their own devices and these are often found wanting.
But brides and grooms-to-be should maybe take the first hint that things are doomed from the wording of the wedding vows, which seem to have been subtly altered for the benefit of the flighty of temperament.
"Till death or any other minor inconvenience do us part," certainly has the timeless ring of insincerity.
Longlasting
On April 22, 2006, Entourage star Kevin Dillon married model/actress Jane Stuart in a Vegas wedding chapel ceremony which included several serenades by Elvis. That day Dillon also had his own "entourage" present including co-star Jerry Ferrara, who was Dillon's best man while fellow cast member Kevin Connolly walked Stuart down the aisle. Stuart gave birth to their daughter Ava in May 2006 and the couple remain married today.
In tennis, the term "love" means nothing, but for tennis champions Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf, it would seem love means "till death us do part". In 2001, the couple held a private wedding ceremony in their Las Vegas home. Today, the tennis powercouple reside in Las Vegas with their son, Jaden Gil and daughter, Jaz Elle.
Eric Dane, or McSteamy of Grey's Anatomy as he's better known, is a Las Vegas Wedding alumnus and proud of it. He got hitched on October 29, 2004 to wife Rebecca Gayheart - a marriage so spontaneous they had a Las Vegas cab driver fill in as best man.
Gayheart explained they were out to dinner one night and, before they knew it, they were on a plane to Vegas. In fact, she said their families were upset they didn't get to participate.
