A winter Las Vegas wedding with a red theme and a Chotronette dress

Las Vegas Winter Wedding — *Photos by Ana Studios*

Offbeat partners: Nancy and Amos

Date and location: Rainbow Gardens, Las Vegas NV – 12/04/2021

Our winter Las Vegas wedding at a glance:

Our whole wedding was designed around my beautiful Chotronette dress! The dress was custom-made based on two of their dresses, with some of my own flair.

Chotronette dress with roses and butterflies

Amos had no idea why everything in our wedding had red roses and black butterflies but he was such a trooper and even purchased a stunning red rose jacket!

Our wedding was postponed due to COVID. We got engaged in 2019, had the wedding planned for December 2020 and ended up having to wait until December 2021. We did have a small backyard ceremony in December 2020 on our original date just to make it official!

Side note – I started working with Chotronette in this dress literally DAYS after Amos proposed! So I had it for over a year sitting in the closet waiting for our big day – it was torture!

Tell us about your Las Vegas wedding ceremony:

Amos and I wrote our own vows back when we had the backyard wedding in 2020, and remained both accurate and relevant for our December 2021 wedding! Amos pulled out a piece of paper that had one vow that said, “I vow to make Nancy happen and to make her happy every day.” He then put the paper away like he was done.

He then laughed and said, “Just kidding, she'd kill me if that's all I had to say.”

He then pulled out his full vows – they were sweet and funny which is exactly what I was going for:

“I love how strong your beliefs are, and you never back down. I love how you shine in any setting. I love how you care and how much you care about everything.“

He had funny lines saying how he vows to “figure out dinner and make sure I eat when I can't make a decision” – which he does!

My vows are ones that I wrote over many months. I kept the piece of paper I had been writing ideas on in my purse and anytime something would pop in my head, I wrote it down. My vows were also sweet and funny. They started with

“I never thought I would find a man that I could trust, feel safe with, enjoy being around, and love so much. Someone I can truly call my best friend. And then you came along.”

I cried like a baby reading them! I continued to tell Amos that:

“I vow to be the wife that you deserve – someone you look forward to coming home to, someone to celebrate, laugh, and cry with you. Also someone who makes sure you don't forget your work badge and breakfast in the mornings.“

I also vowed to “lay off the garlic in my cooking” after he got a full clove in a bite once… let's just say that's the one vow I haven't been true to. He got used to the garlic – he married a Sicilian, he knew what he was getting into! My last vow quoted was a Beatles quote (my musical obsession): “If you need somebody to love, just look into my eyes. I'll be there to make you feel right.“

Tell us about your Las Vegas wedding reception:

Our reception was a blast! Amos and I had a fun plan for our first dance. We danced to Can't Take My Eyes Off You by Frankie Valli. I grew up with oldies and do pin-up in my free time, so we had a lot of oldies/Motown on the playlist!

The song was perfect for doing the Macarena, which we broke into that during the chorus.

When I danced with my godfather, he “flashed” me with his rose shirt underneath his jacket – it was hilarious!

We have a large group of friends between the two of us – we host a lot of parties, so everyone knows each other. Two of the tables had a “table war” throughout the wedding that we didn't even know about until afterwards – apparently they went back and forth pranking each other throughout the night, which spilled over into our photo guest book.

They would take photos and write things like TABLE 3 SUCKS and TABLE 4 SUCKS DICK AND TABLE 3 IS JEALOUS. Haha! Our people are so much fun.

We all gathered around the bar and took a big group shot together.

What was the most important lesson you learned from your wedding?

Our wedding had more challenges than most with COVID. After having to postpone once and not knowing if we would even be able to have it the second attempt, it was very stressful. On top of that, I had to change my maid of honor THREE times.

Long story short, you find out a lot about people when it comes to a wedding. I lost a couple friends that I thought were my closest, but ultimately they wanted nothing to do with our wedding, and weren't happy for me like I would have been for them. It was hard, but on the other hand, I now have the best support and was able to become closer with those who really love me and were happy for me!