At the Little White Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas, they're expecting a run on couples pledging their love as the clock strikes midnight on Sept. 12 -- anything to avoid an anniversary on one of the world's most infamous days.

"They tell me, 'We don't want our licence to say Sept. 11,' " says owner Charlotte Richards, proud purveyor of the Tunnel of Vows drive-through service. "Business really picks up at 12."

In fact, across the United States, while cities plan to mark the one-year anniversary of the day the twin towers fell, social calendars have been politely rejigged; no one wants to be seen sipping champagne or tittering by the fashion runways while the nation pauses to remember.

This is true in New York, especially, where Fashion Week has been postponed for 10 days -- along with the launch of a new Jennifer Lopez perfume -- and weddings have been pushed until later in the month.

But if you've been blowing out candles on 9/11 long before it became one of history's most infamous dates, can you ever celebrate again?

Such was the grim coincidence faced by New Yorker Mike Oldrich and his family, who after a brief discussion, intend to honour his 39th birthday the same way they always have.

"It's his birthday forever," his wife, Trish, said. "If someone dies, you still live. I don't think the world should stand still that day."

Mr. Oldrich could be understood for wanting to avoid his birthday: His last one has haunted him for months, keeping him up long hours at night. On that morning, after being sent to work in a new suit and the promise of a birthday dinner, he watched from the 21st floor of his office building while a plane smashed into the World Trade Center tower directly next door. The fireball, he said, is imprinted on his retina.

After making sure his co-workers had gotten out, he took the stairs to the street just as the first tower went down. He watched the second fall as he sprinted, in the billowing dust, for the Hudson River. When he finally arrived home, his seven-year-old son greeted him at the door. "Dad," he said, "this is the worst birthday of your life." His family says they refuse to let that happen again.

For Marie Hoerner, however, there will be no more birthday celebrations; the pain, she says, is too deep. Last Sept. 11, the Florida woman turned 84. She'd travelled to New York with her husband, visiting their son Ronald as they had done on her birthday for the past 20 years.

On that fateful morning, Ronald woke her for a kiss on the cheek.

"Tonight," he said, "we'll go for dinner. I'll call you later." But he never did. As she now knows, the planes were already in the air, headed for the tower where Ronald worked as a manager for Summit Securities. This year, kind neighbours are forcing her to go to dinner.

"I don't think I'll be thinking much of my birthday," she said. "I'll be thinking of my Ronald."

Dagni and Dale Anders in Witchita, Kan., are giving up on an anniversary evening altogether, though they were married 37 years ago on Sept. 11. They're going to their church, where a master organist will play American music on the new pipe organ.

"Every time you said Sept. 11, I used to think of our wedding," Ms. Anders said. "Now it's a day of infamy."

The professional advice offered by Mike Condra, a psychologist at Queen's University who will also celebrate his 29th wedding anniversary this Sept. 11, is to place the competing feelings of joy and grief in a balance -- mark the memorial but don't let it obliterate the day. He plans to take his wife to dinner that night. "Positive, pleasant things will be marked with it," he said. "Somehow we have to store the feelings."

Harriet Braiker, a Los Angeles therapist who wrote The September 11th Syndrome,says some of her patients grappling with a 9/11 birthday or anniversary have chosen to pick another day -- perhaps permanently -- to celebrate. "It's a tricky thing," she said. "For a lot of people it feels spooky. Your special day has turned into something that takes on horrible global proportions."

Toronto resident Anita Frank, who will turn 47 on Sept. 11, is calling it her "ex-birthday." Last year, she sat feeling guilty in her favourite restaurant, the joy sucked out of the party, and decided she'd never try that again. She's given up telling people the day she was born, except for official documents.

"I'm looking for another birthday," she said.

"And I'm considering lying about it for the rest of my life."