Casino owners, wedding planners get lucky as 7-7-07 approaches.

Byline: Mark Baker The Register-Guard

If you don't believe that seven is a lucky number, then why is it everywhere - from astrology to religion to popular culture?

Why are there seven days in a week? Why did God create the heavens and the Earth in six days and rest on the seventh?

Why are there seven continents and seven seas, seven possible games in a World Series, an NBA Finals or a Stanley Cup series? Why are there seven openings in the human head, seven notes on a musical scale, Seven Wonders of the World, seven original NASA astronauts, seven deadly sins and so many movies with "Seven" in their titles, including these seven - "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers," "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," "The Seven Year Itch," "The Magnificent Seven," "7 Faces of Dr. Lao," "Seven Years in Tibet" and, of course, "Seven"?

And why is the seventh Harry Potter book coming out later this month, the seventh month on the calendar?

Who knows?

All we know is what the media tell us, which is that record numbers of weddings have been scheduled across the country for Saturday - 7-7-07 - and casinos, from Las Vegas to Florence, are preparing for the onslaught of gamblers who hope triple sevens on the calendar will transform into triple sevens on the slot machine.

So if you're superstitious, then maybe you believe Saturday will be the luckiest day to come your way since July 7, 1977.

That was, after all, the last time sevens lined up on the calendar. And even though 7-7-07 might not line up as perfectly as 7-7-77, it does fall on a Saturday. July 7, 1977, was a Thursday, not the most popular day of the week for nuptials.

"We are booked solid," says Q Wollock, a wedding cake decorator at Eugene's Sweet Life Patisserie.

Sweet Life is making 13 (lucky number) wedding cakes for Saturday - to be delivered from Yachats to Sutherlin, Wollock says. Although that might not be a record, it's got to be close, she says, and it's way above the norm of 12 to 15 cakes in an entire weekend of events.

A Lebanon couple, Michael Lefevers and Rachel Evans, are getting married Saturday - at the local Wal-Mart store on South Santiam Highway, of all places.

"I'm in there a lot, so I might as well just get married there," says Evans, who worked in the store's sporting goods section for three years and shops there about three times a week.

Evans and Lefevers are among seven couples, out of 400 entries, getting married on 7-7-07 at Wal-Mart stores across the nation, part of the giant retailer's "Lucky in Love Wedding Search" contest. The couple won a $5,000 wedding package to marry in the store's lawn and garden center. Wal-Mart decided to hold the contest after learning that couples nationwide were having trouble finding places to marry on Saturday because of the popularity of the date.

"We were just going to get married in a park," says Evans, who didn't get the news that she and Lefevers had been selected until June 6.

About a third of marriage license applicants in Lane County in recent weeks who have specified a date say they're marrying on Saturday, says Marle Hoehne, supervisor in the Lane County Deeds and Records department. Other than that, "It's about like it always is this time of year," he says. "Busy."

Celebrities who will marry Saturday include "Desperate Housewives" actress Eva Longoria, who's getting hitched to Frenchman and NBA basketball star Tony Parker of the San Antonio Spurs, in a castle north of Paris; and chef Wolfgang Puck, who will walk down the aisle with his fiance in Capri, Italy, according to Time magazine.

If you just couldn't work getting married into your 7-7-07 plans, then maybe you'll join others heading to a casino and seeking a 7-7-7 jackpot at the slot machine, or turning up three sevens for a `21' in blackjack. The Three Rivers Casino in Florence is bracing for the rush.

"We are pumping up and staffing up and trying to be ready," says Rich Colton, Three Rivers' marketing manager.

The casino will be giving away seven slot points per $1 from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday, when the norm is one point per $1, Colton says. Jackpot winners also will receive free "I Hit a Jackpot" souvenir T-shirts, he says.

In Las Vegas, the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino and the Flamingo Las Vegas are each hosting 77 weddings Saturday, three times their normal numbers, and The Hotel at Mandalay Bay is offering a full-scale wedding package for $1,077.07, according to the Time article. The Ritz-Carlton Lake Las Vegas has its "Seven Ways of Wonderment" package that includes a deluxe room on the seventh floor, seven hours of spa treatments, a seven-course meal, a $777 line of credit at the casino and a tour of Hoover Dam, one of the "Seven Wonders of the Industrial World" - for $7,707.

Of course, if seven isn't your lucky number, you could always wait until Aug. 8, 2008.