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LAS VEGAS — In jeans or in white, pregnant or pushing a suitcase, brides and their grooms rushed to the county courthouse on Valentine’s Day, eager to exchange vows in the city of quickie, no-frills weddings. 

“We just came in off the plane,” David Lendosky, 48, of Turtle Lake, Wis., said Thursday, hauling two bulging suitcases up the stairs of the Clark County Courthouse. 

Lendosky and his bride, Mary Eichholz, 45, skipped hotel check-in and went straight to the long line at the Marriage License Bureau. 

“We thought it’d be different,” Eichholz said of marrying in Las Vegas. 

That’s a sure thing in a city where you can wed in a taxi at a drive-up window, get a marriage license any hour of the day on weekends and holidays and take advantage of the most liberal marriage laws in the nation — no blood tests or waiting period for the $50 license. 

“No movie stars came,” said Cheryl Vernon, license bureau supervisor. “Actually we’re kind of slow today. Yesterday was horrendous.” 

Last year, 1,065 marriage license were issued on Valentine’s Eve and Day in Las Vegas. Vernon expected this year’s total to be lower. 

“They’re all crazy,” she said. 

Wesley Williford, 38, of Temple, Texas, and his bride, Amber Pollitt, were hoping a Las Vegas wedding would bring them some luck. It’s the third marriage for each. 

“Quick, easy and we had to get away,” Williford said. “We brought some friends to gamble with. Marriage is a gamble, isn’t it?” 

Pollitt, 28, wasn’t paying attention. She was too busy filling out paperwork. 

“Let’s see, my divorce was final, March?” she asked. 

Wedding chapels lining Las Vegas Boulevard put out red ribbons, balloons and signs advertising “I do” specials. 

“We are just having a wonderful, awesome time,” said Charolette Richards, a minister and president of A Little White Wedding Chapel. “I just married this couple in their car!” 

The chapel booked 150 weddings for Thursday, each lasting a few memorable minutes. “We are into the serious part of marriage,” Richards said. 

On the Strip, 107 couples brought to town by a Los Angeles radio station exchanged nuptials at the same time under the Eiffel Tower at the Paris Las Vegas hotel-casino. 

Ryan Fender, 36, and his bride, Penny Saylor, 28, of Dallas opted for a wedding in the sky with a minister and, of course, Elvis. 

“We are a fun-loving couple, thrill-seekers if you will,” Fender said after the couple’s hot-air balloon wedding. 

And in the city of assembly line nuptials, why not a mass wedding reception? 

A local company, Vegas Receptions, recruited brides waiting at the license bureau and invited them to toast to their future with fellow brides in a banquet room at the Greek Isles hotel-casino. 

For $35 a person, newlyweds get a first dance, bouquet and garter toss, a cake and Elvis. 

“Instead of them going to a buffet in their wedding dress, we’ve developed a place where they can all party together,” said Brian Mullin, company president. 

But even in the self-proclaimed wedding capital of the world, love isn’t always in the air. 

“You don’t want to get married?” a woman asked her boyfriend after he walked away from the waiting line at the courthouse. “It’s Valentine’s Day!”