Interview with Gordon Gust

MJ: Gordon Gust thank you for joining us today.

GG: My pleasure

MJ: We're here in a chapel in Las Vegas, tell us the name of this

establishment and what exactly you do here?

GG: This is the Candlelight Wedding Chapel and I'm the proprietor.

MJ: What does, what does that involve? What do you have to do?

GG: Oh, I just kind of over see, I own the business so I oversee

everything that's going on. I've been doing it for the last 23 years, and,

just make sure that employees show up, and make sure that the customers

are treated right, do a little P.R. work with them and as, as well as the

people that refer weddings to us.

MJ: Now the customers here are people who want to get married and get

married fast. Is that right?

GG: Some want to get married fast, some want to do it the traditional way,

but we're here to accommodate whatever they'd like to do.

MJ: How did you get the idea for this business, and when did you get

started?

GG: Well I moved here in '69 and I really didn't get in this until '73,

but I saw the wedding chapels, I was in a couple other businesses that was

in direct sales - not exactly this type of thing - and I saw those and saw

the chapels, and I saw an ad in the paper, I didn't realize it was a

wedding chapel - it was in big #

black letters - it said "Wanted, sophisticated salesman." I thought, what

could that be, you know. So I came down, it was at this chapel and a

gentlemen interviewed me for several days in a row and then he gave me a

job working with him for about three months, and then someone else took

over and I worked for him for three years, and then I had a chance to get

into the business.

MJ: Now do you actually perform weddings?

GG: No. No, we have ordained ministers that do the weddings.

MJ: But you studied to be in the ministry yourself and...

GG: Yes...

MJ: ...decided not to?

GG: Yes I decide... well, I guess I just didn't get back to it. I wish

I...it's ... sometimes...I wish I would've gone ahead with it. But I got

into this and it took up a lot of my time and I really didn't want to get

involved unless I actually finished the ministry I didn't really want to

do the weddings, I felt I would leave that up to the, to the ministers.

MJ: How does a minister you know, get ordained, or become able to do these

kind of weddings?

GG: O.K., they have to have a church, a minister that has a church, Las

Vegas is a little bit different than other states, there if you're a

minister and you have your license you can go ahead and do weddings. In

Nevada, you have to apply with the secretary's office and get a special

permit to do weddings

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because it is such a big business in Las Vegas, they want to make sure that

the people that are doing the weddings are qualified to do them.

MJ: So I couldn't just come into town and say I want to be a minister and

do weddings, you really have to have a church, you have to be certified and

.....

GG: You have to have a church, holding meetings in a legitimate church,

and then you have to, yes, be certified.

MJ: Now, in a typical day, how many weddings take place here.

GG: Oh, on an average day like today, we'll probably do around 25

weddings. Fridays we'll do between 30 to 50, 75 or 80 on a Saturday, and

then another 40 or 50 on Sunday.

MJ: And how many minutes does an average wedding take?

GG: Oh, we have ministers that are on call for an eight hour shift, and

...

MJ: So it's 24 hours...

GG: Yeah, we're open 24 hours.

MJ: Is there a certain time of day, you know midnight or ... have the most

weddings?

GG: Well, it's usually in the afternoon...depending...in the summertime

it's mostly in the evenings, you know like 4 or 5 o'clock on 'till about

midnight because it's cooler. But you never know, cause one day you might

do 30 after 4 o'clock and the next day you might do 30 before noon, so

you...it's just you, you don't know what's going to happen.

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MJ: You've had some famous stars who have come to town and been married

here, can you tell us about some of them?

GG: We've had Bette Midler, Whoopi Goldberg, Patti Duke, Michael Kane, the

Lone Ranger, we've had Kurt Rambis of the Lakers, Larry Little...I think

he was a best man for a wedding, Mary Wilson of the Supremes, just to name

a few, there's been quite a few of them.

MJ: I saw an ad for one of your competitors where Michael Jordan had been

married, now why, why....if you could just for a moment, put our, put our

minds inside Michael Jordan's, why would he want to come to Las Vegas and

get married, when he has all the wealth he has he could get married

anywhere he wants to. Why would he come here?

GG: Well Las Vegas is kind of unique, you know, it seems like a lot of the

stars want to come out here and get married. When Bette Midler got married

here, it was like 3 o'clock in the morning and, and she just wanted to get

away from the Hollywood scene, she didn't want all the people following

her, same thing with when the Lone Ranger got married... he says, "you can

put our picture up," he said, "but I don't want you to give to anybody or

to the press or anything because they'll drive me crazy." So they wanted

to come in and have it private and, and Bette did it at about 3 o'clock in

the morning. We asked her if we could have her picture, and she said

"yeah, you can put it on your wall, but I don't want anybody you know,

selling it," because we do have a lot of people from different magazines

and stuff that would like to get their hands on it, and if they don't want

us to, we honor that and therefore they refer other stars that come back...

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MJ: Because they know you'll be private about it...

GG: We'll keep it in private... At one of the other chapels, I have

"Little Church of the West," we've had Dudley Moore and some of the old

timers like Robert Goulet and Judy Garland, Harry James, and Betty Grable,

you know...

MJ: Now do these weddings last?

GG: ...That's a good question. I know that the Lone Ranger's still

married, I know that Bette Midler's still married, I guess the average in,

in the United States is 50 per...there...50 percent of the weddings are

divorces and I notice a lot of licenses I look at, people have been married

one or two or three times, but , the ministers that we have here, if we

have the time, a lot of times we'll sit down and talk to some of the people

a little bit before they get married. We can't do that in every case, but

sometimes we do.

MJ: How much time do you have to counsel and what kind of things do you

counsel if, if you have time to talk to them?

GG: Well, just ask them if the Biblical principles...you know, if, if the

people ask for it, we'll sit down and talk to them...I don't the ministers

do. Most of the time it's really hard because people are in a hurry. They

come here, the reason they didn't go through... several reasons... We had

a gentleman from California that had nine daughters and, and he had two

daughters married in the church, and he said after 50 thousand dollars and,

and, and, half of my head turned gray, he said he brought six of the other

seven up here and it cost him two or three hundred dollars. He said "It's

private, I can choose the way I want it to, I can invite the people I want

to," you know, and, and so it really

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is... Las Vegas wedding scene is, is really a popular way to get married.

Not only with them, but with the movie stars as well.

MJ: So the fellow who had nine kids...in America the tradition is for the

bride's father to pay for the wedding...that was his problem?

GG: That was part of it yeah. He said...but the relatives are about ready

to drive him crazy too.

MJ: What other motivations do you see for people that come here to get

married?

GG: Well, Las Vegas is also the honeymoon capital of the world so a lot of

times people come here and they can have it private choose it the way they

want and they can kind of kill two birds with one stone. They can go right

out and have their honeymoon right outside the door you know.

MJ: I mean, do you think people just kind of come to town, just to have a

good time and while they're here they say 'hey let's get married.' Is it

something that casual?

GG: Not in every case. I think that happens...we had a couple that met up

here at a little lounge called the Pepper Mill at around 2 o'clock in the

morning and they got married here at 7 o'clock in the morning. They knew

each other five hours and they were .....I think he was around 20 and she

was 18, but about three or four years later they came back and they had a

little girl two years old and they brought another couple from Michigan and

they stood up for their wedding, so that lasted you know I'm sure not in

every case. I know there was another case where we had a gentleman

that...he had lived

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with this girl for three or four years and they got married and it lasted

six months so you know, it's...you never know.

MJ: You never know. There are sort of two theories on getting married-one

is you put two cold eggs on a hot stove and they sizzle and the other is

you have two hot eggs and they get cold-which do you subscribe to and would

you recommend like for your own kids to get married in a situation like

this?

GG: Yeah, I wouldn't mind it you know if they chose their own minister

where we go to church and they wanted to have a private ceremony in a

chapel I wouldn't be against it at all because it's just you and your

invited guests and you know I think you can have a .....a lot of people

think 'well, gee, it's a chapel, God's not gonna be there,' but you know, I

think God is wherever you want him to be and He'll be at a chapel ceremony

as well as if you are in a church.

MJ: Tell us a little bit about your family?

GG: Okay, I have a wife of 27 years. I have three children, two daughters

and a son. I have a daughter who is 19, a son 15, and another daughter

that's going to be nine this month.

MJ: Now if one of your daughters or your son came and said 'I want to get

married in a chapel to a guy I've known for a couple of days.' What would

you think? Would that be difficult for you?

GG: I think we'd have a serious talk. If it was a couple days.

MJ: So the location is fine, you just wouldn't approve of the duration of

time

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they'd known each other.

GG: No, I think....I think marriage. The problem with America today is

that people don't really take it serious. You know they think, man it's I

met this guy or I met this girl and we hit it off and before they get to

know each other. You know I think a real healthy relationship is one that

grows with time and I don't think it's anything you need to jump into.

It's something you want to last. I think it's the backbone of America is

our families and I think the reasons families are breaking is problems we

have today, so I really think that they should take some time. They have

plenty of time.

MJ: Did you think you'd ever being doing this as a kid. Is this what you

sort thought you'd be doing someday or how did you get into this exactly?

GG: I never knew it existed when I was a kid but as I was saying to one of

my friends, you know, thinking about driving up and down the strip and

seeing all the wedding chapels and never in the back of my mind dream, and

I used to drive by here quite a bit, that I would end up owning the place.

It just happened, you know I had a couple of other businesses for about

three or four years and I got tired of that so I sold it. And I was

looking through the paper just to see what was available and I saw this ad

in big black letters that said, "wanted sophisticated salesman." So I had

to see what that meant. And it was coming down here and this guy

interviewed me for several days and I went to work for him and three months

he was gone and somebody else took over. And I thought boy that's strange,

he never even told me about, you know, and I worked for this other guy,

three, four years and I got a chance to get the business' myself.

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MJ: Were you from Las Vegas originally?

GG: No, I am from South Dakota. I was in the Air Force for four years and

the last two years I spent in Alaska and my roommate was from here. I was

going to move to California where I was stationed also for a couple of

years and he talked me into coming here and never left.

MJ: How's life different from South Dakota? What do your relatives in

South Dakota think of what you do?

GG: Oh they think it's great. It's a quiet little town, you know only

about 12,000 people and I grew up on a farm actually outside of the town.

To them, you know, Las Vegas is, "Wow, Las Vegas". You know they see the

wedding chapels, they think it's pretty neat.

MJ: Have you had any relatives be married here?

GG: Yes, I've had cousins married here.

MJ: Why is Las Vegas so attractive for people who want to get married?

What are the laws like here that are different?

GG: Well it's the honeymoon capital of the world for one thing. A lot

people come here because after they get married for their honeymoon. This

way they come to Las Vegas, the wedding chapels provide everything for

them, even things they may have forgotten or they get too nervous to think

about, that we usually can provide it for them. As far as the laws are

concerned, there are no blood tests or waiting period in Nevada. They just

have to both prove that they're eighteen years of age and they have to sign

that they are not legally married by someone else. If they are under

eighteen years of age to the

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age of sixteen they have to have either a notarized parental consent or a

parent with them to sign.

MJ: So in most states there is a blood test and the waiting period is how

long?

GG: I'm not sure. Different states are different have different laws and

I'm not sure if all the states have blood tests but it's a little bit more

difficult. And Las Vegas since the early 1900's, I was looking back at a,

somebody had a paper back in 1901, there was like five people married for

that year, then the next year eleven, and it started going on up to where,

last year there's right around 100,000 people came just through our county.

Washo county I think was another 40 or 50 thousand.

MJ: So you have to be at least sixteen years old, you can't come in if

your fourteen, fifteen and get married under any circumstances?

GG: Well if your under that age you have to have your parent and you have

to go before a judge and he has to decide it, he can they can get a court

order. That doesn't happen to often but once in a while, depending on the

circumstances they can go through a judge.

MJ: How long does the ceremony generally take? What's the range of time?

GG: Well sometimes we have some people who want to come in and just say,

"we just want to say will you put the ring on my finger and do you take

her", and they can last four or five minutes. To where we have a

traditional wedding that can take a half hour, where they have bridesmaids

and the father gives the bride away and they have ring bearers and the

flower girl and that type of thing.

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MJ: Are there any circumstances you can think of where you or the minister

would say, "Sorry, we can't marry you."

GG: Sure, if someone comes here and they are inebriated.

MJ: They're drunk.

GG: Yeah, they won't marry them no.

MJ: How do you judge that, do you have a breathalizer or just by the

way...

GG: Well you can tell by the way they're acting, you know, if they're

acting rowdy and not conducive to somebody who should be getting married

and we just tell them to think about it a while.

MJ: Anything else?

GG: I suppose if they had there license and they were knocking each other

out out front, we'd probably say, think about it.

MJ: If they were already fighting.

GG: Yeah.

MJ: Have you ever had two members of the same sex come in and want to get

married and what do you do in a situation like that?

GG: We've had people inquire about that but in the state of Nevada they

don't issue a license to them, so there is nothing we can do about it

anyway.

MJ: I know you belong to a church, are there any friends that you have

that, are say, are a little more traditionalist that aren't crazy about

what your doing

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and maybe might say they don't agree with you or anything like that?

GG: I've had some people say, you know, because they feel that maybe

people should be counseled with a little more and they thought whether it

was a right kind of business because people come in that have been married

two or three times, that type of thing. We feel like we provide a service.

You know, the people are going to get married and they've chosen to do

that. So as long as they feel like it's the right thing in their life

we'll go ahead and do the wedding.

MJ: What is important about marriage? Why are you involved in this

business, you must have your own philosophical or reasons for...?

GG: Well I think marriage is kind of a sacred thing it's something that

God planned for man to have a partner and it's neat to see the different

people that come in here and see the looks on their faces and watch them

down front. You know when I first started here I used to sit in the back

and cry as much as the bride did watching them get married. I still,

there are some of them, after you have seen thousands and thousands of

them, there are still times that I find myself getting a little bit

emotional over it. It's just, everybody is different, you know and it's a

fun business to be in, cause it's happy.

MJ: You must have seen some funny things happen over the years, are there

any stories that you can tell us of different incidents?

GG: Yeah, we had a marine come in here one time that was decorated and had

several purple hearts and was taking his vows here, and there about halfway

through it it looked like someone had sprayed him with a hose, the water

was dripping off him and finally he had to sit down because he was

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going to pass out. So he sat down for a while and they finally finished

the ceremony on one of the pews. And he says, "You know I've been shot at,

I've been in hand to hand combat and I've never been this nervous in my

life" We had another case where two people came in and they were high

school sweethearts and the groom was 88 and his bride was 85 and both their

spouses had passed away and they decided to get married and he came in to

get the flowers and went to sign for the wedding and he goes, "Oh my god,

this is for a lifetime isn't it". You get kind of neat things like that.

Then we've had tumblers from England, the acrobats you know. The groom sat

down front and she stood back there and she did somersaults all the way

down and lit in his arms and took their vows that way. So you have people

that have different requests you know.

MJ: What is the cost range for a wedding?

GG: Well we have a basic brochure, which I'll show you but basically it's

55 dollars for the use of the chapel and then we have flowers and pictures

and videos and live music and recorded music. We also have packages where

we put different things in so the packages start at 169 and on up.

MJ: 55 dollars including the minister?

GG: Oh the ministers work separate for a donation. And I think ministers

donation going donation is around 40 dollars.

MJ: Now so your saying you can actually bring your own minister in.

GG: Sure....

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MJ: Some people do that?

GG: Yes, we have people that come in and bring their minister from the

church to do the wedding. And we allow that, sure.

MJ: This very inexpensive.

GG: It is very inexpensive. Like I was telling you about the gentleman

with the daughters he spent something like 15,000 dollars a piece or more

for each of his daughters and he comes up here and spent 350 for the others

and they had all the flowers and pictures and everything that you could

possibly want.

MJ: Now you own three wedding chapels like this one. How many are there

in the Las Vegas area?

GG: It has to be somewhere in the neighborhood between 40 and 50 now.

MJ: And how are the hotel expansions going to be affecting, are the hotels

trying to get into this business too?

GG: The hotels, most of the hotels are starting to put wedding chapels into

the hotel. And of course the hotels have everything there, the rooms and

that type of thing, but a lot of people still like free standing wedding

chapel. They don't like to go through the casino atmosphere and to see a

free standing chapel it looks like a church, is very appealing to a lot of

people, so we're still doing quite well.

MJ: Now you've been married for 27 years. Do you ever have any advice for

people coming in here on how to stay together?

GG: Well you've got to listen. You've really got to sit down and listen

to

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what the other person has to say and a lot of times you bite your bottom

lip and all. Even though you don't want to, you know. But I guess it's

basically trying to be a pal with your wife, you know, a good friend, I

think that helps. You know, know what their desires are and what their

needs are because if you care about them and respected them, I think

they'll return it. There are still going to be those times, you know,

where you'll have to bite your lip several times.

MJ: The last 20 or 30 years we've sort of seen marriage less valued as an

institution. A lot of people living together. Young people say, it's just

a piece of paper. Why do you think it's important? Is it important?

GG: I think it's the structure, the backbone of America is the families.

And I think because of the breakdown of the families, you see all the crime

and all the juveniles, kids you know that are killing each other now, which

you never had 30 or 40 years ago because the family was the number one and

most important thing and the family that put God first and now it's

whatever is best for me and whatever feel good and this is the way they do

it and I think people really let their morals slip and what really means

the most.

MJ: Do you see other states getting involved in this business, maybe

loosening up there laws?

GG: I think some of them probably will. I don't think they'll ever

compete with what comes to Las Vegas because Las Vegas is you know it's

one of a kind like Washington D.C.. You know, I mean it's just one of a

kind.

MJ: I guess the question to ask is where were you married and if you had

to

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do it over again would you come here?

GG: Oh I probably would if this was available to me. But I just got out of

the Air Force and I was in Alaska and I got married in my local church that

I was attending up there before I ever knew that wedding chapels existed.

MJ: Now you have three of these chapels, what is your day to day activity

like? Do you go back and forth, do you keep one as home base?

GG: I go in and out of all of them. I have a partner in one of the others

that spends a lot of time up there, but I'm in and out and there's daily

things you have to do, to the office, to sign the checks, to make sure that

everything is running okay. I have a manager that helps me also. I like

to keep my fingers on things and see what's happening.

MJ: Do you think you'll stay in this business for a long time or are you

looking to retire or expand?

GG: Probably looking more to retiring here and spending more time with the

younger kids before they leave home.

MJ: Now you have three kids, do you think any of them will follow in your

footsteps and take over the business from dad?

GG: Oh, they've talked about it but I've encouraged them to go on to

college and one of the things they're interested in, my son was talking

about being a minister and I want to encourage him to do that.

MJ: A minister like a wedding chapel minister?

GG: No, get into the ministry and have a church. He's even talked about

missionary work. My daughter's interested in sharks. That's her first

love.

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So she's studying marine biology and the little one now, she's still into

bubble gum.

MJ: Gordon thanks for your time today.

GG: Okay. My pleasure.

MJ: Gordon, thank you for joining us.

GG: My pleasure. Glad to have you here.