Elvis and Priscilla Presley’s Wedding, 1967
An eight-minute ceremony in a private hotel suite, a champagne breakfast for about a hundred, and a bride whose bouffant and eyeliner said as much about 1967 as the dress did.
Elvis Presley’s wedding was over almost before it began. On the morning of May 1, 1967, in the private suite of the Aladdin Hotel’s owner, Milton Prell, he married Priscilla Beaulieu in a civil ceremony that lasted about eight minutes. The marriage license had been issued at 3:30 that morning. The pictures that followed, of the most famous man in American music beside a bride in beaded chiffon with a towering black bouffant, became some of the defining wedding images of the 1960s.
| At a glance | |
|---|---|
| Date | Monday, May 1, 1967 |
| Place (ceremony) | Milton Prell’s private suite, Aladdin Hotel, Las Vegas |
| Reception | Breakfast reception at the Aladdin; a second reception at Graceland, Memphis, on May 29, 1967 |
| The dress (designer) | White silk chiffon gown with a beaded yoke; no designer credited |
| Guests | About 100 at the breakfast reception |
| Officiant | Justice David Zenoff of the Nevada Supreme Court |
The couple
They met on September 13, 1959, in Bad Nauheim, West Germany, where Elvis was stationed during his Army service. He was 24; she was 14. After he left Germany in March 1960 they stayed in touch, and he proposed shortly before Christmas 1966.
Their daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, was born on February 1, 1968, nine months to the day after the wedding. The couple separated in 1972 and their divorce was final on October 9, 1973.
The ceremony
The wedding was arranged quickly and quietly by Elvis’s manager, Colonel Tom Parker, and the guest list for the ceremony itself was tiny; several of Elvis’s close friends learned only at the last minute that there was no room for them. Two of his longtime friends and associates, Joe Esposito and Marty Lacker, shared the duties of best man, and Priscilla’s sister Michelle was maid of honor.
Justice David Zenoff of the Nevada Supreme Court performed the civil ceremony. A press conference followed. “How can you look happy when you’re scared?” Elvis joked, as the next day’s Las Vegas Sun reported.
The dress
Priscilla’s gown was white silk chiffon, simple in its line, with a beaded yoke and sleeves trimmed with seed pearls. Accounts differ on how she found it: some say she designed it herself, others that she bought it ready-made in Los Angeles while shopping in disguise to avoid being recognized. No designer was credited. With it she wore a three-foot tulle veil held by a rhinestone crown.
The dress was only half the look. Her hair was piled into a towering black bouffant and her eyes were lined heavily in black with false lashes, the fashionable face of 1967. Elvis wore a black silk brocade tuxedo.
In 2023 the house of Chanel recreated the dress for Sofia Coppola’s film Priscilla. For other gowns that defined their decades, see our guide to celebrity wedding dresses.
The reception
The breakfast reception was held at the Aladdin for about a hundred guests, among them representatives of RCA, MGM and the William Morris Agency. The buffet was lavish and very 1960s: ham and eggs, fried chicken, oysters Rockefeller, roast suckling pig, poached and candied salmon, lobster and champagne. The cake, about five feet tall in six tiers, was decorated with white and pink roses.
The couple flew to Palm Springs afterward. For the friends and family who had not been in Las Vegas, they held a second reception at Graceland, in Memphis, on May 29, 1967.
Why it mattered
It gave the quick Las Vegas wedding a new glamour. It also showed a way of marrying that many couples have since adopted: a very small ceremony for the people who matter most, followed later by a larger party for everyone else. And Priscilla’s look, with its dramatic hair and eyes and a plain dress with a jeweled neckline, remains a reference for brides who want a 1960s mood.
Borrow the idea
Marry small, celebrate twice. A private ceremony with a dozen people and a larger reception a few weeks later is kinder to the budget and the nerves. Our guest list guide explains how to split the two.
Serve breakfast. A morning ceremony and a late breakfast or brunch reception is elegant and less expensive than dinner. See the wedding menu for how to plan one.
Let the neckline do the work. A plain chiffon dress with beading or pearls only at the yoke and cuffs keeps the eye on your face, which is where Priscilla’s look succeeded. For hair and makeup with a 1960s mood, see our guide to wedding hair and makeup.
Wear it again. If you hold a second celebration weeks later, wearing the dress once more is a charming touch for the guests who missed it.
For another wedding that began in a small room and went around the world, see John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette’s.
Written and edited by the Today’s Weddings editors. How we research and check what we publish is set out in our editorial standards. Spotted something wrong? Tell us.
