Two Plus Two Older Archives - elvis wedding vegas trip report

Just got back from Vegas where I was married by Elvis. I'll get to that. I flew in Fri night and left Sun so there wasn't much time for poker, let alone serious poker. The rest of the trip was amazing though.

My wife and I did a combined bachelor/bachelorette party since we share many of the same friends. Our "real" ceremony will be in France in 2 weeks, and our reception is back in the states afterward, but we needed an actual license which we could carry to France, thus this weekend. It was intended to be a fun/joke/gimmick wedding but it's kind of weird that now I'm technically married.

Anyway, Fri we went to Bellagio and briefly went to Caramel, but it was too loud/crowded so we quickly relocated to the Baccarat bar. Some good luck and friendly staff found us with a large table/sofa in no time, and heavy drinking commenced. At some point Scotty Nguyen came in and I and a friend chatted with him. Really nice guy, I didn't want to bother him much but he kept insisting it was fine. Ended up going to bed around 5am.

Sat we went to the courthouse to get the license. It was as you'd expect, a mix of the surreal and the weird, with a couple of more normal people thrown in. I played some crazy 4/8 at the Mandalay with some of my friends briefly (see my other trip reports for further explaination) then our Elvis ceremony was at 9:30pm. We were completely decked out in 70's and otherwise gaudy attire, my wife had a gogo miniskirt and knee high boots as well as these huge white sunglasses. I myself went for the red suit, bright yellow shirt and red pants, complete with giant afro. Another member of our group also wore an Elvis suit/sunglasses, and quite frankly he looked more like Elvis than the Elvis impersonator who married us. Pokerbabe was going to join us but alas, the evening was too late for her. Her presence was missed. You would have laughed your ass off babe. Later that night we drank champagne at Paris, then I played some -EV with 2 of my non poker friends, @ the boardwalk of all places. Somehow I manage to lose 800 at a supercold craps table, then another 200 at blackjack. Excellent. We did see a guy get backroomed for the high crime of... high-fiving a fellow player @ the blackjack table. This was totally ridiculous. As soon as he did this, the pit boss came and said "you're outta here. Pick up and leave". When the kid started questioning this, a security guard came and started shoving him around. The kid kept saying "what, I can't high five someone? What, you're going to hit me now, for high-fiving someone?" so finally they called 4 more guys, put him in a choke hold and cuffs, then led him to the back. I wish I was kidding. I can't believe the kind of attitude that place has; in fact, several of my friends were told very sternly to "keep it down; this is where people come to relax" when they started winning. No, people don't go to the Boardwalk to relax. They go to gamble and see ghetto people. Anyway, the whole place definitely has an anti-fun vibe and the only reason I played there was b/c basically the whole wedding party was staying there. Never again.

Sun we played some more Mandalay, and I got crushed, mostly b/c I couldn't hit big draws to save my life. My style in that game (super LAG) demands that my hands come in some of the time. No dice this time. Oh well. A good time was had by all, and I wish I could have played some serious poker, but this was a sweet trip. Oh yeah, and the whole marriage thing.

Leon