The big wedding wave of 2023 is on the horizon, and a spike in recent engagements means wedding ceremonies planned for the upcoming New Year's Eve will have planners and officiators as busy as a bee hive as the clock readies to strike 12.
For better or for worse, it will be the icing on the cake for many ready to take that plunge into matrimony after falling in love.
Melody Willis-Williams is the president at Vegas Weddings and runs multiple wedding chapels.
"There's nothing like it and it's a once-in-a-lifetime event," she said. "This is a huge amount of logistics for us. We’ve got basically 130-plus weddings and climbing," she told Scripps News.
This year, the date pattern has New Year's Eve falling on 12/31/23, or 123123, if you didn't notice that interesting numerical chain. Many couples see the date as having some kind of special meaning.
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The clerk of Clark County, the area of the state of Nevada that houses the epicenter of fun and fast weddings — Las Vegas — says he is expecting three to four times the number of couples to tie the knot this year.
Lynn Goya said, "Typically, around New Year's Eve, we see around 400 to 500 couples, which is not bad."
Goya told Scripps News Las Vegas, "That's a good night for us, but we would expect three or four times that amount this year."
She said it also helps that the date doesn't fall on a weekday this year.
"It's not just the numerology. It always helps when the numerology falls on a weekend," she said. "So it's easier for people to take one day off, maybe two days off, and still be able to travel."
She calls dates that are considered to be special "magic dates."
New Year's Eve has usually drawn out around 450 to 550 couples to say their vows and get married in Las Vegas each year since 2018, according to data reported on by the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
@scrippsnews What's special about the date you chose to get #married? For couples tying the knot on 12-31-23, 1 2 3 1 2 3 will make for an easy #anniversary reminder. Wedding destinations like #LasVegas ♬ original sound - Scripps News
