Weddings Last Week

Last week an older couple was marrying. He was in his fifties, she in her forties.  He had a ring for her, but she hadn’t bought one for him yet.  She really wanted a double ring ceremony, so he pulled a ring off his other hand to use. He warned her it wouldn’t fit on his left hand.  He was right.  She tried to slide the ring on, pushed and pushed.  It hung up on his knuckle. They left it there, I finished the ceremony and he replaced it onto his right hand. 

Their witness, her teenage daughter, had a surprise for all of us.  She pulled out a bag of rice and started throwing it at the couple and all over the room.  As soon as I could, I stopped her.  No rice is allowed in the building or the sidewalk out front.  The room was a dangerous mess.

The clerks were having a bad day.  I took a couple up to D for a Spanish wedding.  Since it wasn’t my couple I didn’t check the license.  I handed it to D, and curse words.  The clerk had not filled it out.  It had the couple’s personal information.  Nothing else: no dates, witness info, where the ceremony was taking place, no info on where the license was sold, and on and on.  Let us say D was ticked big time.

One of my licenses was really messed up.  The day’s date was wrong, for city she had put Alameda instead of Oakland, for county she put Oakland, for officiate was the street address of the county building .

Instead of the bride wearing the dreaded thin white dress, the witness wore a thin black dress.  Let’s just say I know she wears bikini pants and no bra.

Several couples just seemed too light hearted to be marrying.  There didn’t seem to be the respect for the event that would change their lives.  Laughter is good, but not making fun of the vows, acting bored, standing with arms crossed,  or striking stupid poses during the ceremony.  All of these couples are going to have a “wedding” later.  If they don’t consider the civil ceremony a wedding, why bother going through it?