In Mobile, Mom’s Little White Chapel will start having weddings in the middle of July
Couples from Newfoundland and Labrador who want to get married in a Vegas-style chapel no longer have to go to Sin City. Soon, they’ll be able to drive straight to the Southern Shore.
There, in Mobile, Brenda and Bob Lee have spent the last few months building Mom’s Little White Chapel, which is their own version of the famous Little White Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas.
People in the province think it’s the first of its kind.
“There are no more that we know of. Brenda Lee said with a laugh, “We hope we’re the first.””I’m sure they’ll try to copy, but they won’t be able to.”
One of Mom’s Place’s guests asked the couple who runs the bed and breakfast if she could say her wedding vows while she was staying there. This is where the idea came from.
The ceremony went smoothly, the bride was happy, and Brenda Lee saw something.
“That night, at 4 a.m., she woke me up and said, “I have an idea. “I have an idea,” said Bob’s wife, adding that it wasn’t the first time she had woken him up with “a crazy idea.”
“I told them, ‘Yes, we have to build a chapel. We should have a white wedding chapel like the ones in Vegas, and we should be open all the time,'” Brenda added. “Why not see [people] when they’re the happiest?”
Bob was on board right away, but he is still surprised by how quickly things are coming together. The chapel’s concrete floor was poured just two short months after the ceremony on Feb. 9.
Bob said, “When Brenda sets her mind on something, it happens pretty quickly.””I thought it was an idea we’d work on first, but in three months we had a little white chapel.”
The name of Mom’s Little White Chapel is not just a reference to the name of the famous chapel in Las Vegas. It has a lot of design elements that refer to the U.S. elopement spot, like a custom-made sign and a stained-glass window with a picture of Elvis Presley.
Brenda said that their love for Elvis comes from the fact that her late uncle Terry was born on the same day as Elvis.
Dave Pye and Jillian Gardiner of SGO Designer Glass in St. John’s heard about the unusual request and knew they had to be a part of it.
“Every once in a while, I work on a project that is so much fun. “I just couldn’t believe it,” said Pye. “Jillian worked hard on a design of Elvis because she didn’t want to do something that had already been done. We wanted to think of something completely new. And she did it with flying colors.”
“I definitely like a challenge,” Gardiner said.”I also love to use as many designs and colors as possible. So, that was a great move for this panel.”
Gardiner was able to design the panel in any way he wanted, and he added special touches like the words “The King” and “That’s alright, Mama,” which were meant to honor Brenda Lee’s late mother.
Pye said that the design process took about 20 hours on its own, and that the whole making process took about 100 hours.
“It is very hard to make a well-known figure like this out of stained glass. “When people look at it, we want them to know right away who they’re looking at,” Pye said.
“I think this one is probably the most fun for us. It went well.”
The chapel is getting the final touches it needs before its opening ceremony on July 14. The Lees hope to add a custom-made steeple later in the fall.
“I can’t wait to meet all of the brides. I can’t wait to see everyone and see how happy they are. Brenda, who is now a licensed marriage commissioner and will marry the couples herself, said, “I love seeing people get married.”
The chapel is getting full very quickly. Six brides booked their wedding dates in the first 48 hours after the chapel was announced on social media. Since then, 32 brides have booked their wedding dates.
The Lees, who ran away together to get married, have some advice for people who are about to get married: “Don’t go to bed angry.”
“Hopefully, by the time they leave here, they’ll be so happy they won’t be able to think about anything else but when they can go back to Mom’s Place,” Bob said.
Brenda agreed, “As long as they book for their anniversary.”
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