Monday, January 7, 2013

Joe's Dispatch from the Marriage Factory

Our guest blogger, Joe, is back.  Not only does Joe write about the marriages to help me, he has  become our TV Buddy.  Regular readers know we are having issues with installing our satellite dish, so no TV at our place.  Last night was the premiere of Downton Abbey and Joe and Sue had us over to watch it with them.  Good caring friends.

My apologies to Miss Janet. The holidays have been a period of much
activity, not least at the Marriage Factory. Here's a rundown of the
last three weeks.

The day before the weekend before Christmas Eve was surprisingly busy,
with almost 10 weddings (that means 9), a couple of whom even
mentioned the predicted end of the world. Several of the couples had
kids, none cuter than the little one who held her mother's bouquet in
front of her and said, "I'm a bush!" One of the grooms, taking me for
a judge, asked me how I came to marry people. I explained how to
become a deputy marriage commissioner, and he seemed interested. Even
with Miss J back, we still need all the help we can get.

The cutest couple were a pair of "hipsters" - piercings, ear gauging,
the whole lot. She wore a short ecru dress with a blue petticoat that
matched his tie.

New Year's Eve Eve Eve Eve Day was slower. Images: a babe-in-arms,
slowly pulling petals out of her mother's bouquet, examining them, and
dropping them on the floor. A bride in a raincoat and boots who
removed the coat to reveal a beautiful red wedding dress with a
tutu-like skirt. A wad of gum on the underside of the podium. (Gross)
Incidents like that reassure me that I'm not getting baselessly
crankier as I'm getting older. Sometimes, that crankiness is
warranted. 

This Friday started with a kerfuffle over foreign language ceremonies.
I'm qualified to do weddings in Spanish & English. We have staff who
can do weddings in Cantonese, Lao, Vietnamese, and Mandarin. A couple
had a Mandarin wedding scheduled, but the person who does them had
work to attend to, so I took up another couple for an English
ceremony.

As I was talking to the upstairs clerk about the first
couple, my couple overhears and decides they want a Mandarin ceremony
too. 2 problems: 1) I'd already printed my name on the license;
normally, the clerk could just reprint it, but 2) the license is from
San Francisco. Solution from the HoR geniuses: I did the absolute
necessities (what I call "Do you/Do you/Power vested in me"), thus
marrying the couple, and the Mandarin-speaking clerk did the full
ceremony. Everyone was happy, and no reprinting was necessary.

The rest of the day was busy but less complicated. Lots of beautiful
dresses, including a floor-length white gown, a tea-length white dress
with lace side panels, a mini with snow boots, and a "little black
dress" in orange. The snow boots couple had recently lost their dog,
and so had his/her tags wrapped around the stems of the bouquet. They
are forever awesome for doing that.

Most season-appropriate apparel: the bride & groom in matching 49ers
jerseys. Go Niners!

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