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 hadwork 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!
