Sometimes, it's the weddings that bring people to Las Vegas. To get married quickly and cheaply, with the glam and themes that Vegas is known for. For Julia Sharpe, it's the weddings that kept her in Vegas.
Backing up a little, Julia Sharpe's life started rather normal. She grew up in the midwest. The city she lived in growing up wasn't too big, or too small. She was the youngest of two daughters, and her parent got divorced when she was tweleve. It wasn't a traumatic time for her, though she never quite got over it, no matter what she might say. Her parents still live in her home town. Her grades in high school were on the high side of average, and she started business school at a local college.
In her third year of college, she was twenty-one, and as a gift, her sister and her sister's husband took her to Las Vegas. They were both finally old enough to enjoy all the amendities, and they booked a whole week in one of the city's casino-hotels. It was during this week that she met Alex Roe, a young police officer in the Las Vegas PD. He was only a year older than her, still a rookie, but he was off duty and the two of them hit it off well in one of the local bars.
Many drinks, much dancing, a whirlwind romance that Las Vegas is famous for in movies. He wasn't her first, but he was the most significant. Most of her vacation was spent with him, when they could get together. And often in bedrooms.
Returning home, Julia found out after a few weeks that what happened in Vegas doesn't always stay in Vegas. She was pregnant. At the next chance available to her, she called him and despite weighting potential options, he blurted out on the phone that she should come back to Vegas and marry him. Hopelessly in love after that week long vacation, she agreed. Not long after she left her family and schooling behind, then they were married. It wasn't an Elvis wedding, but it was beautiful, and not long after, their son was born.
Damon Roe was, as she will always say, the most beautiful baby she'd ever seen. And coming from someone who never wanted kids until she found herself pregnant, it was something. Without her degree, she worked in various professions to supliment her husband's salary, often as an assistant or secretary. It wasn't money that began to drive a rift between her and her husband. It wasn't violence or infidelity— it was the stress from the job and a growing realization that they barely knew each other when they got married.
Their divorce, when their son was eight, was as friendly as divorces can probably get. They agreed on custody issues— she would keep Damon, but he would spend a lot of time with his father as well. Despite the divorce, though, she often stayed with her son while he was with his father. Not for fear of violence, but because she still liked the company of her ex. A hopeless romantic, part of her wanted to relive that week, but at the end of it she would still go home, and was happier without him there all the time.
As her son got older, Julia went back to school, finishing out a smaller degree, and beginning to think about what business she might like to try. It was her current job as an scheduling assistant at a Chapel that gave her the idea. A wedding brought her back to Vegas, and the wedding was one of her best memories, short of the birth of her son. She wanted to give that memory to others, as well.
With money saved up over the years, she opened her own small business, a chapel that her and her son could live below. For the next six years, she would own and operate it, help it grow in size, and marry people who booked, and meddle with people who were in the considering stages.
But her life wasn't all easy— not exactly. As her son got older, he began to do what teenage sons sometimes do. He rebelled. In small ways at first. More than once her ex husband would bring him home in a police car, where he'd been caught vandalizing, or with fake IDs trying to get into clubs. His underage record began to get longer and longer, but never anything too terribly bad, at least, but too much for a single mother who was trying to run a business to keep up with. No matter how much she tries—
And she does try.
[[tab Skills]]
Business: Julia went to business school— twice. She knows enough about business to start and run her own, as she has been doing for the last six years. This encludes a lot of management skills, paper work, taxes and various other things. She's also in the business of marriage, so she keeps up to date on marriage laws in Nevada.
Firearms: While not a great skill, or even something that she would claim to know a lot of, her exhusband did teach her how to load and fire a handgun, as well as take it apart and turn the safety on and off. This does not extend to cleaning gun, or doing much beyond basic point and shoot, nor does it give her knowledge beyond a basic semi-automatic handgun or revolver, the only kinds he taught her. She does, however, own a registered handgun (a six round revolver), which she keeps locked in a small gunsafe in her office.
Costuming and Decoration: While she's not an expert costumer, or anything, part of the fun of owning a wedding chapel is in dealing with the different costumes and decorations. As most Vegas weddings are spur of the moment, she keeps a large collecting of nice rentable attire for weddings. The dresses and suits can be purchased for a larger price as well. Flowers, cakes, all of it can come in the more expensive packages. The cheaper the package, the less they get out of it. But her chapel offers weddings of many themes, including the recently popular Zombie wedding, that offers makeup.
