Not the blog I had planned

Halloween is a big holiday in the Bay Area.  Everyone dresses up, nurses, clerks, chefs etc. Costumes are fun and very well done.  At the Marriage Factory we marry zombies, clowns,witches. .  . . very interesting costumes and lots of weddings. . . until this year.

I had Joe and Patricia, the Friday Marriage commissioners, ready to take pictures and to send in blog reports.  Well something happened on Friday, there was a parade and a city wide party for the World Series winners.  Oh that was the San Francisco Giants.  No one showed up to get married.  Great sadness, but hold on.  There are a few pictures and a guest star appearance on my blog,

We had fewer Trick or Treaters this year, but we had enough to enjoy the costumes.  

The teenagers looked great.  I thought I had a winner for best costume but then I found the little girl at the bottom of the screen.

Now the boys costumes were better, scarier, but cute always wins out.  Look at our little Lady Bug.

Later that night I received a visitor, a world famous visitor, Thor!

Here he is all 6' 9" of  him.  He heard I was ill and came to give me a hug.  We  had a lovely visit.

TRICK or TREAT !

Yesterday was Halloween.  In the last 12 or so years we have not had many Trick or Treaters.  Some years the boys next door would come, but usually they were at a party.  Last night we had no idea how many children to expect.  There are lots of children in the neighborhood, but would they be out?  Since we have so many steps Marty decided to just sit on the inside steps and not run up and down the stairs.  That changed to sitting in a chair (balmy California night) on the porch with our new downstairs' neighbor.  I took the chair, Claire had a chair, and Marty sat on the porch railing.

Claire used to live in the same apartment several years ago and said lots and lots of kids would come by.  For us, there were a lot of children, but not as many as she said in years past.  It was fun talking to our new neighbor, and fun handing out candy to children.  Although some Moms had a sack for candy too.  The costumes were fancy and many were very imaginative.  The biggest surprise of the night was how polite the children were.  Thank you said by most of them, no grabbing, waiting for their turn at the candy bowls.  We have had some really greedy rude brats over the years. 

Below I have a few pictures of the children.  I asked the parents if I could take pictures, and promised no faces would be shown unless the child had a mask or had  on makeup. Remember it was nighttime and I had to work on the pictures to allow for shadows.  Some are bright because the children are under the porch lights.

And it begins.  Little cute ones and then tall scary ones. 

 

 

An adorable Ladybug

 

 

There were several of these, in varying heights

 

 

A lovely butterfly next to her is her sister who did not go for cute or beauty. . .

 

 

The Butterfly's sister. 

 

 

 A scary trio

 

 

This was the best costume of the night.  Not a child, this was Dad watching over his children.

 

We enjoyed all the costumes and the fun of Halloween.  Next year Marty and I might have to dress up.   

 





Halloween Weddings

I have done marriage ceremonies on Halloween before.  I even wore a Widow's veil with the skulls of my husbands arranged in a pyramid on top of my head, a lovely look.  Couples and their guests came in costume.  As one groom said, "If you're marrying on Halloween, why wouldn't you dress up?"

Sadly yesterday no costumed couples.  And there weren't many couples for me.  During the morning there were 7 weddings.  I arrived and it ground to a halt.  I finally did 2 ceremonies, and L did a few in Spanish. 

The first wedding the bride and groom laughed and laughed.  Everything set them off.  We are talking major nervous laughing.  Then we started the vows, she laughed and then she would cry, and then she laughed some more.  The crying won out.  They were a somber couple by the end of the ceremony.

The second couple the groom was 25 and the bride was 44.  Usually age differences don't bother me, but this one did, this was the bride's fourth marriage.  It just looked like red flags going up everywhere. They managed to tick me off immediately.  I called their names, (they are the only group in the lobby I knew it had to be them) no response.  I called their names again and a woman walks up.  I ask if she is P, no she is over there.   Finally I have a bride, I asked where the groom is.  Over there.  What is wrong with these people?  I introduce myself to the bride and groom, ask if they are ready, is everyone here.  Yes and yes.  We load the group on the elevator and go to the wedding room. Things go down hill from here.

Please, mute your phones.  A phone rings and this dumb s#** answers it and starts talking loudly.  I gave him the stare of death and he left the room.  I call the bride and groom up, no bride.  They don't know where she is.  One of the women says she went to the bathroom.  OK, I 'll just ask the groom the usual questions, do you have rings.  And some woman starts answering the questions.  I told her it wasn't her wedding and let the groom speak. He says yes we have rings.  We run through my rules and questions. Still no bride.  Finally she strolls in.  We begin, phone guy still out in the lobby talking.  He eventually strolls in and joins us. 

I begin the ring ceremony and the groom says, "We don't have rings."  He had told me they did, I asked what is going on.  "Oh, we don't have real rings, we have plastic spider rings."  I tell them rings are a symbol and a token, we can do spider rings.

The ceremony is OVER.  I sign the license.  As the witness is signing, a guest looks at the license and says, "That isn't a confidential license.  They wanted a confidential one."  Then the bride says she wanted a confidential license, please get the license changed.  I told them I didn't think after the marriage it could be changed without a court order.  I would go check with the marriage desk.  I talk to C she agrees with me.  But will check with the higher ups, who aren't answering their phones.  She does know the couple will have to buy a second license and no refund on the first.  C is going to track down her superior while I tell the couple they will need to buy another license.  When they hear they will have to pay out more money, suddenly they are just fine with the license they have.

I was very glad to see the back of this group.