Worst wedding dress ever, and other happenings at the Marriage Factory

Lots of weddings on Monday.  Some in English for me, and others in Cantonese and Spanish.  My first wedding was a destination wedding.  A same sex couple from Arizona had come to California to marry.  They were so nice, a couple of teddy bears.  They loved how nice and easy everything was handled in Alameda County compared to complicated wait times in San Francisco.  Then they noticed the art work was all marriage related. They took lots of pictures by each piece of art.  A great couple to start off the day.

Sometimes I get couples with hard to pronounce names.  Remember I grew up in a little town in Kentucky.  Not much diversity there.  Until I started doing marriages I didn't have to be able to pronounce hard names.  Friends taught me to pronounce their names, and that covered it.  But now, lots of diverse names, Mongolian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Romanian, Hispanic, Indian, and on and on.  For an example check this out: Qixia.  This is Chinese and I do pretty good most of the time.  But a Q and a X in the same word threw me this time.  I was close but no cigar.

Remember my rule, ask if everyone is here, before we go upstairs?  Didn't go as planned. The clerk told them they were next and I would be right out.  (Wish she wouldn't do that, what if I needed a bathroom break, or another commissioner is doing a Spanish wedding?)  Any who, I go out and one of the grooms is missing.  He is paying the parking meter.  They made a point to tell me how long they had been there, an hour!  Really, you think you are the only ones getting married?.  The lobby was packed.  Finally the groom comes back, everyone is here, and we go upstairs.  I call the two grooms over and only one shows.  The guy is missing again.  He had gone to the bathroom.  I admit I got a little testy.  I had a desk full of licenses and these people have taken as long as a ceremony and we haven't started yet.

In my defense for being testy the couple before this one had been a problem.  I started asking questions and realize the groom did not speak/understand English, not a word. The clerk had to know this.  So I had to get them out of the Wedding Room, and then go get the above couple. That is always awkward. 

Now about the awful wedding dress:  Visualize this. . . a mullet dress.  It gets worse, the top is black strapless but she is wearing a black bra that is not strapless.  It gets better and better, the mullet skirt is a leopard print and sheer.  Thank goodness she had on black hot pants under it.  I just can't unsee this hot mess.