Keep your motor running
Michelle Lydon is a Las Vegas kind of woman. A justice of the peace in Quincy, she's been to Vegas twice and loved it, mainly because when it comes to getting hitched in Sin City, there's no judgment, no wait, and no real expense.
High-priced, grandiose weddings have their place, for sure, but some couples want it cheap and easy. Lydon believes those couples should have Vegas-style options in their own backyards.
"You can't get any easier or cheaper than me," Lydon says proudly.
Lydon's trips to Vegas are what inspired her to start a drive-through wedding service in Quincy. For $75, Lydon will marry you in her parking lot, which is right on the main, Hancock Street drag. It isn't the classiest of setups, but for some couples it's just right.
The wedding service, which lasts about five minutes, includes brief commentary from Lydon about love, followed by her pronouncement that you're husband and wife, husband and husband, or wife and wife, depending on your needs.
"I got a call from a couple that was like, do you do gay drive-throughs? And I'm like, of course I do, and they're like, thank God."
It's no surprise that someone has decided to duplicate Vegas wedding services in the Bay State. More couples are doing their nuptials on the cheap. More couples are choosing municipal ceremonies to pare costs. Even New York has jumped on the last-minute, Vegas bandwagon. The Big Apple's City Hall recently unveiled a special space where couples can get married on the fly in front of an oversize New York City photo. It's Manhattan's Chapel o' Love. Quick. Inexpensive.
Lydon's parking lot isn't exactly like Vegas, of course. The setting she offers for couples-in-love is actually her family's funeral home, which she took over from her father three years ago. Shortly after she became the boss of the Lydon Funeral Chapel, known around Quincy as the funeral home with the waterfall on its front lawn, Lydon added weddings to the list of services. She knew it was a risk and that couples might not want to get married around so much death, but they couldn't argue with the price - $100 for a ceremony led by Lydon in the funeral home's upstairs meeting space, which has been redecorated to look like a small chapel.
"One day a casket is coming out the front door. Another day a bride is coming out the front door."
About a year ago Lydon decided she wanted to offer something even quicker, cheaper, and more spontaneous than her $100, funeral-home weddings. The $75, parking-lot econo-ceremony does the trick.
It works just like Vegas, minus the heat and the casinos. All you need to do is warn Lydon that you're coming. Once you arrive, you can choose to stay in your car or stand in the parking lot. She won't ask you why you're getting married. She says she avoids looking too closely at the paperwork, which tells her how many times a person has been married before.
"I'm not going to judge."
Lydon said she warns every couple that they'll be getting married in a funeral home parking lot.
"If you're going to be weirded out, I'd want you to know first."
Julie Ann and Pavel Santos weren't upset by the setting at all. The couple, both in their 20s, got married drive-through-style in March. Julie Ann said she and Pavel were on second marriages, expecting a child, and wanted a service that would be hassle-free and inexpensive. Despite the Quincy traffic, the ceremony was pure romance, Santos said. She credits Lydon's enthusiasm.
"She was so excited she made me even more excited about it," Santos said.
Lydon says her funeral clients don't mind the weddings. Funeral parlors are often so cold, so gloomy. Mourners have been comforted by spending time in a place where happiness also blooms. They don't mind seeing a couple jump out of a car and make a lifetime commitment with smiles on their faces.
"It's not a spooky area," Lydon said. "It's a love area."
Meredith Goldstein can be reached at mgoldstein@globe.com. You can read her daily Love Letters dispatch and chat with her every Wednesday at 1 p.m. at www.boston.com/loveletters. 