Elvis impersonator Michael Conti sings at the Little White Wedding Chapel (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

To have and to hold’em

There were 265 Las Vegas weddings per day in April, a post-Covid record

6/21/24 1:41AM

Can’t help falling in love

Great news for potential elopers and ordained Elvis impersonators alike: more people are saying “I do” to Las Vegas weddings again following a brief pandemic slump, according to marriage data from Clark County, Nevada.

Indeed, the number of marriages filed in Vegas’ home county totalled 7,963 in April — more than 35x the amount seen in the same month 4 years ago when Covid halted the states “quickie wedding” industry. That worked out to an average of 265 marriages per day, a post-pandemic record.

While it’s taken time to bounce back fully, the waking-up-in-Vegas approach could be increasingly attractive as “speedy” and, crucially, “cheap” have become ever-more desirable requisites for those planning ceremonies — with Forbes reporting that the average wedding in the US now costs $33K. That’s $4K higher than the year before. Chapel packages, like those at the famous A Little White Wedding Chapel, start from as little as $80 for a “Drive Thru Tunnel of Love Ceremony”... although they can hit as much as $495 for a full “Elvis Tribute” wedding.

Although inexpensive by wedding standards, all of those ceremonies soon add up: wedding-related tourism in Las Vegas accounted for some $2.5 billion in spending in 2022, supporting 18,000 jobs in Sin City.

As well as saving considerable costs and hassle, many are also drawn to the cultural cliché of the Vegas wedding, made famous by the likes of Frank Sinatra and Britney Spears. In fact, Bumble recently offered 50 free weddings in Las Vegas to US couples who’d met on the app for its 10-year anniversary, and a new Friends experience at the MGM Grand will allow fans to recreate the iconic “The One in Vegas” drunken chapel scene.

Millie Giles1/9/26

Tamagotchis are making a comeback, 3 decades after first becoming a global toy craze

If you were a ’90s kid, you might remember the craze around little egg-shaped toys with an 8-bit digital screen, displaying an ambiguous pet-thing that demanded food and attention.

Now, on the brand’s 30th anniversary, the Tamagotchi — the Japanese pocket-sized virtual pet that launched a thousand cute and needy tech companions, from Nintendogs to fluffy AI robots — is making a minor comeback.

Tamagotchi Google Search Trends — Sherwood News

Looking at Google Trends data, searches for “tamagotchi” spiked in December in the US, up around 80% from just six months prior, with the most search volume in almost two decades.

While the toys are popular Christmas gifts, with interest volumes often seen ticking up in December each year, the sudden interest might also have something to do with the birthday celebrations that creator and manufacturer Bandai Namco are putting on, including a Tokyo exhibition that opened on Wednesday.

Game, set, hatch

More broadly, modern consumers appear to have a growing obsession with collectibles (see: Labubu mania), as well as a taste for nostalgia (see: the iPod revival, among many other trends).

But, having finally hit 100 million sales in September last year, the brand itself is probably just glad to exist, giving a whole new generation the chance to experience the profound grief of an unexpected Tamagotchi death.

Millie Giles

PANDORA’S BOX OFFICE

1/5/26

“Avatar: Fire and Ash” surpasses $1 billion globally after 18 days

James Cameron is now the first director in history to have four consecutive movies gross over a billion dollars.

$5.6B

Max Knoblauch12/23/25

Disney could be well on its way to its third billion-dollar film of the year following a $345 million opening weekend for “Avatar: Fire and Ash.” The film’s opening gross puts the “Avatar” franchise’s total box office earnings at $5.6 billion — and counting.

The latest film, the second “Avatar” entry under Disney’s tent, earned about 75% of its total box office gross internationally — in line with previous movies in the (as of now) trilogy. Domestically, this one earned $88 million, falling short of expectations.

“Fire and Ash” was the widest Imax release ever, debuting on 1,703 screens globally and earning $43.6 million through the format. The $345 million “Fire and Ash” opening weekend was the second-highest of 2025, behind Disney’s “Zootopia 2,” which recently passed the $1 billion mark, globally.

Year to date, Disney has earned $5.8 billion globally at the box office.