Elvis weddings could soon be banned from Las Vegas

“That’s our bread and butter. I don’t get it. We were just hitting our stride again through COVID, then this happens.”

Clark County Clerk Lynn Goya told the Las Vegas Review-Journal the development could “destroy a portion of our wedding industry” and that a “number of people might lose their livelihood.”

Kent Ripley of Elvis Weddings said some of their bookings have been “planned for three, four, five years to have an Elvis wedding.”

He added: “They want to protect the Elvis brand. But what are they protecting by taking Elvis away from the public?”

To get around the ban, one venue got its Elvis impersonator to change into a black leather jacket and fedora and pivoted the ceremony to a more generic “rock ‘n’ roll” theme, the Review-Journal reports.

One of the chapels, Graceland Wedding Chapel, performs 6,400 Elvis-themed ceremonies a year but say it has not been served a warning from ABG yet.

ABG controls the estates of a number of figures such as Marilyn Monroe and Muhammad Ali.

The cease-and-desist letters it has sent to the chapels state they will halt the unauthorised use of “Presley’s name, likeness, voice image, and other elements of Elvis Presley’s persona in advertisements, merchandise and otherwise”.

The letters point out that “Elvis,” “Elvis Presley,” “and “The King of Rock and Roll” are protected trademarks.

But the order will not apply to Elvis-themed stage shows in Vegas. This is because impersonating someone for live performances is considered an exception under Nevada’s right of publicity law.

Mark Tratos, a local attorney who helped write the law, explained: “An Elvis show is a performer essentially entertaining others by re-creating that person on-stage.”

“The juxtaposition would be, deciding to go to a mechanic as Elvis. Is he really an entertainer, creating a story? Or simply using the Elvis name to essentially draw a customer who can say, ‘I had an Elvis guy fix my car.’

“The question is, are you using it to attract attention versus storytelling?”

The date for chapels to comply with the cease-and-desist order was May 27. As of Monday, no chapels have said they have been contacted further by ABG with the threat of legal action.