Get married without leaving your car

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - It's a first for New Mexico: a drive-through wedding chapel, and where else but in Nob Hill?

This is the story of a businesswoman who wanted to bring joy in a way no one else could.

"I've officiated over 555 weddings and counting," Pearl Gabaldón told KRQE News 13.

She just loves weddings. Now she's taken her love one step further.

A few months ago she decided to open her A Celebration of Love Wedding Chapel on Wellesley Avenue SE.

"Here we needed a small wedding chapel and needing something that was cute and with shiny walls," Gabaldón said.

Inside is a quaint setting for small weddings. Outside something for the more adventurous.

Gabaldón has done only one drive-through wedding so far but looks forward to many more.

Why a drive-through?

"For fun," she said. "People who use a drive-up window are fun people.

"If I was inside I would say, 'Welcome everyone. Please turn off your cell phones.' In the car I say, 'Please turn your radio down."

Gabaldón says officiating weddings is her calling.

"I had an electrician come in here to do work for me and he said, 'You are going to make a lot of people happy', and I said, 'Good. I have made a lot of people happy.'"

Gabaldón says she wants to offer something no one else in town can, and this was the perfect spot.

"Where else but Nob Hill?" she said. "Nob Hill is exactly where this needed to be."

No matter how bad the economy, people still get married, and this is a less-expensive alternative, she added.

While she's all about fun, she says she does have some limits and has turned down two weddings.

"One wedding they called me on national Make Marijuana Legal Day and wanted to celebrate and smoke pot," Gabaldón said. "I don't' do anything illegal.

"The other was a nudist wedding. I had to laugh. This body doesn't do nude."

And Gabaldón said there's one other rule: you can't be drunk.

"Occasionally I get someone from Kelly's late at night with a slur, saying we want to get married, how do we do this?" she said referring to the bar and restaurant across the street. "You need a license and need to be sober to do that."

Gabaldón said while spur-of-the-moment weddings are her thing, you do need to have your wedding license in hand.

If you have a success story for our New Mexico Works segment, contact Kim Vallez by e-mail .