My Wedding - A Funny Story, Really

Today is my wedding anniversary so I thought I would take a moment and tell you about our wedding. Those who know me will not be surprised at how it all went down. There is something here for Type A personalities; we got 'r done. There is something here for the frugal; we didn't spend much. There is something here for the practical; our reasons were nothing if not pragmatic. But mostly there is something here for those with a sense of humor as the entire event was about as unorthodox as it gets.

We weren't married before our wedding day. We were living in sin with a bastard son. This was good because the son was able to provide the entertainment at the wedding for a price we could afford. We also had my daughter who was half-orphaned due to a deceased father. This was good too. She was able to act as a wedding consultant and stand in for my mother who wasn't there to tell me what to do. You see, my mother didn't know it was happening or we wouldn't have gotten away with not spending any money.

It was Friday, December 30. It was getting ready to be a holiday weekend and places were closing early. Places like courthouses. It was also getting ready to be the last day of the year for tax purposes. My significant other, Shannon, was at work supporting us. I was in my pajamas, on my lazy butt, in front of the computer at home.

I decided to figure our taxes so that I could do some financial planning for the coming year. I do that around New Year's. It's the accountant in me.

Shannon could not take the earned income credit for my daughter because he was not any relation to her even though he supported her. I could take it but my income was so small that I would not get as big a credit. I had student loan interest to deduct but no taxes to deduct it from. And so on. In the end we were going to lose about three grand in tax refund money just because we weren't married. I was annoyed but didn't figure there was anything to be done about it for that filing year.

I emailed Shannon at work and told him how much I estimated he was getting back. I also told him what he would get back if we were married and jokingly closed with, "Better hurry!"

Within minutes he called and told me that he was on his way home and to get ready. I told him that we couldn't do that. There are waiting periods and licenses and it's a holiday weekend coming up and, well, it just couldn't be done.

Turns out that it could be done. And it did get done within six hours from that first email.

We went to the marriage license place in one courthouse. In Missouri you can get a waiver on the waiting period from a judge if you have a good reason. But you have to find a judge that's still at work on a Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend. Off to a different courthouse for that... Shannon found the last one only after I was denied entrance to the second courthouse over assorted contraband in my purse. You know, nail clippers and cigarette lighters. Deadly stuff, that. So I waited outside while Shannon and the kids went in to get the waiver. They brought it outside for me to sign. It's lucky I wasn't being forced to get married against my will since the judge never saw me.

Meanwhile my mother called to ask me to pick up some stuff at the office supply store for her. I told her I might not have time since I was trying to get married. She freaked out. She called my sister who also freaked out. Then my daughter freaked out because I had no wedding dress or cake or anything. People were freaking out all around us but we were okay.

We still needed someone to actually marry us. We are not members of any church. It turns out this part was kinda hard. It seems churches want you to be members before they will marry you. They also prefer more than 24 hours notice. A lot of them weren't even answering their phones on Friday afternoon. I would have thought that they would be overjoyed to get us out of sin and into the sanctity of marriage but I was wrong and I sure wasn't getting a justice of the peace at this late hour.

Finally I found a lady minister at the Universalist Unitarian Church who was willing to perform the ceremony right away. She said she would just do it in her living room and told us to be at her house at six o'clock that evening.

We had a couple of hours to kill so we went to the office supply store on my mother's errand. I wanted to be able to say that we had managed to get my mom's stupid tags in the middle of getting married. It seemed fitting somehow.

Then we went to Wal-Mart. Yes, Wal-Mart. We purchased the two cheapest, plain gold wedding bands they had.  I think mine was about twenty bucks. It doesn't fit so I don't wear it. My daughter was still unhappy so we went by the bakery and picked out one of those little bitty six inch cakes and asked them to throw some plastic wedding bells on top of it. It was purple; my daughter chose it. They didn't charge us for the plastic bells.

So it's time. We find the lady's house. She had really gone to some effort on short notice. There were candles burning and soft music was playing. The minister was dressed better than I was in my jeans and tennis shoes. We found out that we needed witnesses that weren't in diapers so Shannon called his mom. She may have been a little freaked out but she showed up with her significant other to bear witness. Too bad no one thought to bring a camera. 

During the ceremony my son started to weave in and out between our legs, nearly knocking us over a few times. He was playing with a toy bulldozer saying, "Scoopity-doop, scoopity- doop," over and over. I got the giggles and could not get ahold of myself. Because of this I don't know what the minister said or what I might have agreed to in my vows.

We didn't have a honeymoon since we didn't have a babysitter. Here it is my anniversary again and I'm still waiting for that babysitter. Plus my husband forgot to buy the fishsticks.