by Tom Pantera
Columnist

There just aren’t many times in life when you plan something and it comes off more or less exactly as you’d wished.

Obviously, the more complicated the thing is, the greater the chance is that a monkey wrench will somehow find its way into the machinery. Simplicity doesn’t guarantee success, but it makes it more likely.

Exhibit A: My wedding Oct. 17.

A little background is in order. Karon and I had been together about three years; we met shortly after I started graduate school in Missouri (and also shortly after I told everybody I knew in Fargo-Moorhead that I was going to live like a monk for two years; one has to be open to the unexpected).

For a long time, marriage wasn’t in our plans, even when it became apparent we were pretty much made for each other. She’d been married twice and I had been married once. Both of her marriages were difficult, to say the least. Mine had simply run its course and I’ve always thought my divorce was about the most amicable one in history, since my ex and I decided early on to act like grownups. At least in my case, staying single wasn’t something I was driven to. I just didn’t feel the need to get married again, and neither did Karon.

Well, things change (see “living like a monk” above). It gradually dawned on me that for reasons of emotion and commitment, something told me I wanted to marry this woman. So, the night after I got a teaching job, I asked her and she said yes.

Now, we’d never really made any definite marriage plans, but we’d often joked about how, if we ever did get married, we’d do it in Vegas in front of an Elvis impersonator. We figured we’d each been through the traditional wedding – which is a nightmare to arrange at best – and this time we’d go for silly, fun and hassle-free. Karon once even jokingly sent me the results of a Google search for Elvis-themed chapels in Vegas.

Well, the proposal made the jokes a little more serious (but not much). She had received a friend’s recommendation about the Graceland Wedding Chapel; we checked it out and it was easy to arrange and cheap. And it was suitably cheesy. We’re not huge Elvis fans, but I’m a huge fan of bad taste and Karon has a great sense of humor, so she generally goes along.

The whole thing took me less than a half-hour to set up online. We got the cheapest Elvis package, which included the vows, flowers, an Elvis impersonator and – one of my favorite parts because of the cheese factor – a copy of Elvis and Priscilla’s actual wedding license. We didn’t send out formal invitations but pretty much put the word out that whoever wanted to come should just show up at the chapel at 7 p.m. Oct. 17.

We ended up with four guests: two graduate school classmates of mine, Lainie and Sarah, and Karon’s lifelong friend Barb and her husband Terry. We chose Lainie as the official witness because she was actually our first mutual friend.

And it went off without a hitch. In fact, in some ways it was better than we’d imagined. Because Elvis wasn’t an ordained minister, just before the service Karon and I went into a side room with a real minister and he did just enough to make it legal. It actually was a little moment that belonged to just us, and it was lovely.

Then the silly part began. Elvis ran us through the vows straight, and then we said Elvis vows, where we promised to be each other’s’ hunka hunka burnin’ love and Karon promised not to step on my blue suede shoes. Elvis sang “I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You” (the processional, when he walked Karon down the aisle) and “Viva Las Vegas” (the finale). He actually was great.

It was silly. It was cheesy. There was just enough seriousness that it was meaningful. We and our guests laughed a lot. It was perfect.

Of course, you can’t separate the event from the location. We’ve been to Vegas a few times and as I said, we both love it. We stay on Fremont Street, which is like a huge street party, and it’s a people-watcher’s paradise. And the food at the Golden Nugget is fabulous.

I like Vegas because it’s America boiled down to its essence. It’s loud, brash, tasteless, gaudy and entirely lacking in subtlety. In Vegas, what you see is what you get.

And the people you meet … you can’t make up characters like that. On Fremont Street, people pose in costumes and charge tourists to get a picture taken with them. One guy, who looked like a rather poor grade of wino, was dressed as Cupid; he wore heart-shaped pasties, wings and boxer shorts that were hiked up his butt so they’d look vaguely like a thong (I won’t get more descriptive than that). Another guy was a pretty convincing Spiderman. And that’s just the people who hang around outside the hotel. While the characters in the hotel were more low-key, they still were unusual. I got my shoes shined for the wedding by a Jamaican guy who was obsessed with the Little Rascals.

Like I said, you can’t make this stuff up. But then, with Vegas a short plane ride away, why would you need to? And if you can get married by a rock and roll star whos been dead for three decades, well, that’s icing on the wedding cake.