02 March 16  |  Events   |  

Drive-Through Weddings Make For Easy Romance

Those quiet machines rumble and carry us along at speeds unfathomable a century ago. Our automobiles seem to extend our personas and play the quintessential role in the theater of our lives; we simply can’t imagine functioning (or even surviving) without them.

While our passion and zeal for our rolling machines may vary, our relationship with these inanimate paraphernalia sometimes supersedes the animate. We sometimes feel an attachment for our machines greater than for our living loved ones. For some of us, deciding the true love of our lives may bring us momentary pause: “Of course, honey, I do love you more than my 1969 Boss 429 Mustang with its single Holley four-barrel carburetor.”

While we at Golden Ocala Golf & Equestrian Club certainly won’t lament the romantic human heart’s tangled passions, we do want to mention there’s a place in this world for car lovers and lovebirds. It is the phenomenon of drive-through weddings – and other related human services.

Yep. You don’t have to get out of your car till death do thee part. While we urge those considering matrimony to come to a complete stop in order to discuss our beautiful wedding options, we won’t disparage car lovers. In fact, we’re quite fond of the machines ourselves.

Drive-Through Businesses Started in the 1930s

The drive-through concept was first used more than 80 years ago at Grand National Bank in St. Louis, Missouri. The drive-through, which was equipped with a microphone, replaced the drive-in – obviously to accommodate impatient, heavy-footed motorists. Drive-throughs became popular mostly at fast-food restaurants. Most modern fast-food restaurants now have drive-throughs.

Guess where drive-through wedding chapels began and continue to thrive? That’s right. Las Vegas.

The Little White Wedding Chapel provided the first drive-through weddings. It opened in 1951 and since then has wed about 800,000 couples. The chapel employs 10 ministers.

Famous celebrity weddings performed at the chapel include:

The drive-through isn’t just limited to food, banking and weddings. Here’s a few examples of imaginative entrepreneurs attempting to address the demand of speed clients:

  • The Robert L. Adams Funeral Home in Los Angeles has been providing services for grieving families and friends for more than 40 years. Mourners don’t even have to get out of their vehicles to express their condolences.
  • The Cathedral of Faith Church of God in Christ in Flint, Michigan provides drive-through prayers. Amen.
  • How about a beer and a gun at Double Shot Liquor & Guns Drive-thru in Schulenburg, Texas?
  • More refined tastes? How about the Contemporary Art Gallery Drive-thru in Vancouver, Canada?
  • Ottawa, Canada provides a drive-through public library.
  • Drive-through firefighting? (We’re not making this stuff up.) Go to McMinnville, Oregon.
  • California (of all places) has a drive-through emergency room: Stanford Hospital & Clinics.

the ever-popular Las Vegas drive-through wedding chapel.

Golden Ocala Golf & Equestrian Club prefers our lovebirds to exit their vehicles so that we can demonstrate how you can have a very lovely wedding – with your engine turned off.

Our wedding packages provide you with the opportunity to create the wedding experience – set in gorgeous, elegant surroundings – that will stun and amaze. Select from our Premium, Gold and Silver packages for a truly wonderful and spectacular reception to toast your special day. Each package includes some fantastic enhancements.

When you book your entire wedding at Golden Ocala Golf & Equestrian Club, we will waive additional facility fees, which include use for rehearsal dinners, bridal showers, engagement photo shoots, bachelorette gatherings, bachelor parties and other events.

Contact Julianne Cuomo, Director of Celebrations, at 352-402-4376 for more information and to begin making plans for your new lives together.

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