Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day at the Marriage Factory went surprisingly well.  The new supervisor had us organized within an inch of our lives.  Each Commissioner was assigned his/her own wedding room.  Two of us took all the appointments and the other three rotated taking walk ins.  When I was given a Spanish ceremony Joe, our guest blogger, took that couple and would give me his English ceremony.  About a third of our confirmed appointments did not show.  So Joe and I also did walk ins.  Total weddings from 8:45 to 4:30, 76.  That is not a record but still a busy day.

A few favorite things:.
The couple dressed in jeans, dress shirt, blazers, and one in a top hat.
Lots of little girls in beautiful long red dresses and flowers in their hair.
Little boys in bowties, red dress shirts, and even red shoes.
Brides in red dresses, white dresses, and grooms in red shirts.
Beautiful red shoes, silver sandals, wonderful boots.
Red roses bouquets, Cataleya bouquet and boutonniere, gardenia bouquet and boutonniere
One of Joe's grooms was talking about being so hot.  He told me he just doesn't do heat well, wedding room is a cool 69-70.  He had a tattoo on his arm that said Keep Refrigerated.

What I did not like:
Disappearing guests, brides, grooms.
Channel 2, an Oakland TV station, being in our way and wasting our time filming weddings and then showing a Berkeley wedding
Rude group who told me I was rushing them.  They did not have their act together. They would not do as asked, told me I was ruining their special day.  This is the couple that let me start the ceremony and then remembered they had a special wedding rug to use, then wanted the brother to do a reading, and then the groom left the arch and started digging in a backpack for a special camera.  They then wouldn't leave the room.  It all ended well, the Southern Belle smoothed things over as I visualized killing them.

Now for some pictures:

 

As elevator doors opened, this is what we saw.  This area was for photo shots after we gently moved couples out of the wedding rooms.

Main Wedding Room

 

 

Little lobby outside the Wedding Room

 

 

These pictures are of my Wedding Room, a decorated conference room.

 

 

This is an atrium off the staff lunch room.  It was like an outdoor venue.

 



 

Two of our Alameda County Deputies at the front desk. 

 



 

The part of the back lobby where marriage licenses are sold.

 

 

My favorite group yesterday, my Hell's Angels.  The bride was in a lovely black sheath and killer heels.   The groom and his friend were typical bikers.  They were big burly men with gorgeous silver skull rings.  They were a just couple of Teddy Bears.  The witness took pictures and as he was signing the license told me he had taken a selfie. That made me giggle.  All 3 were so sweet and fun.  As they left I got big Teddy Bear hugs.   

 

Now for the winner of best bride: Commissioner Patricia won with her transgender bride sporting a full beard.