Las Vegas ends late-night wedding-license service

LAS VEGAS, Aug 31 (Reuters) Las Vegas bills itself as ''the wedding capital of the world,'' but late-night revelers who decide they want to tie the knot now must wait until morning.

The county's marriage-license office, as of yesterday, will be closed between midnight and 0800 hrs, when much of Las Vegas is still very much alive.

''It's one of the things Vegas is known for -- you can gamble, get drunk and get married all in the middle of the night,'' said Jay DeLeon, manager of the Graceland Wedding Chapel -- where Elvis impersonators make special nuptial appearances.

Probably the best known late-night marriage seeker was pop star Britney Spears, who shocked the world in 2004 when she married a childhood friend just before sunrise in Las Vegas. That union was quickly annulled.

People can still get married around the clock at one of the city's few all-night wedding chapels; it will just take a bit more planning to obtain the license, said Cheryl Vernon, who supervises the marriage-services office in the county clerk's department.

Vernon said the new office hours were not the result of a push to curb irresponsible life decisions, but simply because too few early-morning customers -- about 15-30 people -- came in to justify a late-night shift. About 300 to 500 people seek licenses on a normal shift, she said.

Last year the office issued 122,259 marriage licenses.

Vernon said most late-night license seekers have been jet-lagged travelers lugging suitcases and trying to avoid daytime lines, rather than spontaneous celebrants. Still, there were notable exceptions.

''Yes, we did have our few -- like Britney (Spears). She came in at five in the morning,'' Vernon said.

REUTERS MS BS0846