Vegas chapel stakes claim in wedding industry with Halloween-themed ceremonies

The guests were dumbfounded.When Jacqueline Seidel and her boyfriend of 25 years decided to get married, she wanted something different. Vegas different. Something more daring than (yawn) dressing as Elvis and Marilyn Monroe.A Star Trek-themed ceremony didn't pan out. Nuptials aboard the Treasure Island hotel pirate ship? At $3,000, no way. So Seidel ended up at the Viva Las Vegas chapel, which has carved out an unusual — and surprisingly popular — niche in the cutthroat Vegas betrothal business: Halloween-themed weddings.The brainchild of an owner infatuated with stagecraft and the undead, the various spectral ceremonies available to couples feature a Count Dracula, a "Twilight" Edward feather hair extension, a zombie Elvis and a scythe-wielding Grim Reaper. (Insert marriage-equals-death joke here. Oh, and fork over $750.)As outlandish as the ceremonies may be — a zombie groom once pretended to slurp up his bride's brain — they've drummed up business for the chapel as it battles with dozens of others here for a dwindling pool of brides and grooms.Last year, Clark County issued fewer than 92,000 marriage licenses, the lowest number since 1993. (Licenses peaked at more than 128,000 in 2004.) The competition is so ferocious that, a few years back, rival chapels accused each other of slashing tires and shouting death threats.Other Vegas chapels offer Halloween-inspired nuptials, said Joni Moss, founder of the Nevada Wedding Assn., but none with the theatricality of a haunted house. "They're putting on mini-stage-productions over there," she said. Take the chapel's "Rocky Horror Picture Show" package: The staff belts out "Time Warp" and a Dr. Frank-N-Furter performs both the ceremony and the song "Sweet Transvestite."As Halloween has morphed into a holiday that gives adults an excuse to play dress-up, retailers have responded with pumpkin-infused libations and costumes that hug grown-up curves. So too has the wedding industry. Nationwide, it's now the most popular day in October to get married, according to the editor of wedding website The Knot.Even Vegas chapels with no ghoulish options expect to see an uptick in business Monday. (When Halloween falls on a weekend, they are even more crammed with lace wigs Cleopatras and Frankensteins saying "I do.") At Viva Las Vegas, a downtown chapel near a tattoo parlor and a strip club, about 45 couples are slated to exchange rings this Halloween. More couples will wed in the preceding days.Seidel, 42, who lives in Perham, Minn., scheduled her vampiric ceremony for Oct. 18. She and her fiance, Dan Lubitz, started dating in high school, and he proposed a short time later. "We're too young," Seidel said then. So they waited. And waited.Finally, when Seidel's brother got engaged, she and Lubitz decided it was time. "I didn't want a church wedding," she said, "maybe because we've been together for so long."Seidel has been fascinated with creatures of the night since watching "Interview with the Vampire." A repeat Vegas tourist, she had smiled through a Stratosphere hotel show called "Bite," in which vampires bare fangs and breasts to a heavy metal soundtrack. Seidel learned that the show's aerialists also performed in the Viva chapel for a ceremony called "When Vampires Fly."Sold.Viva Las Vegas Weddings, which opened about a decade ago, is the brainchild of Ron Decar. A former singer at the Tropicana hotel, Decar also sang at weddings. In his opinion, couples only had two options in Vegas: a suited celebrant or Elvis. So Decar offered over-the-top front lace wigs weddings that other chapels mostly pooh-poohed, at first.From the get-go, he sold a "gothic wedding" package, mostly because Decar loves Halloween. As a kid, he'd turn his basement into a haunted space and charge neighbors a nickel to walk through. Now Decar often plays the Grim Reaper, using a vaguely British accent, and demands his employees embrace the scary — not sexy — side of Halloween.