Changes To The Wedding Room

Original post: March 16, 2015

The decor of the Wedding Room is novel for a county office: wood paneling, dark wood benches and flower stands, and 2 large tapestries in earth tones with metallic appliques. The tapestries are hung at right angles, creating a natural place for couples to stand.  On special occasions and holidays, the clerks hang decorations.

photos courtesy Miss Janet

A few years ago, in preparation for one of the super busy days (11/11/11 or some such), the clerks wanted to make the room more festive, so a few bought a garden arch and festooned it with shiny fabric, Christmas lights, and plastic flowers.  While a little unsteady at first, it was a thing of beauty - an inspiration to commissioners and guests alike.  Each Friday, at least one or two couples said something like "Wow!  I had no idea it would be so lovely!"

For Valentine's Day, there were usually 2 more arches, each in its own meeting room-turned-wedding room.  Those arches stayed up for a few weeks after the holiday, just in case we got really busy.

Imagine my shock when I brought my first couple up last week and the arch was gone.  While the room was interesting by itself when I started at the Marriage Factory, I'd gotten used to the arch.  Without it, the room was, well, dull, like a Christmas tree without ornaments.  There's nothing wrong with a pine tree, until it's been a Christmas tree and then isn't one.

The clerks shared my dismay, for they had not been warned about the arch's removal.  Why destroy a feature that was obviously a big plus for workers and guests alike, especially something that those same workers had invested time and craft in creating?

The answer came later that day, and was as satisfactory as possible: the existing arches were cleared out to make room for sturdier, nicer arches.  One problem with the arches we had before is that they would wobble when children pulled on them, as children bored with a wedding are wont to do.  The new ones should render that issue moot.

I took this week off, so I'm hoping the new arches are in place to dazzle me upon my return.  They have quite a bit of charm to live up to.

Fashion report
A Tibetan wedding dress like this, a pink skirt with sparkly pink shoes, and a peach chiffon off-the-shoulder dress.

By the numbers (2 weeks)
Ceremonies: 13 (5 & 8)
Formal wear: 10 (3 & 7)
Crowd over 25: 1
13-day-old baby with a knit strawberry hat: 1

Día De San Valentín

Original post: February 18, 2015

Valentine's Day is a busy day for weddings at the Marriage Factory, as you might imagine.  It's not a madhouse, like 8/8/08 or 11/11/11, but a lot of folks put a lot of stock in calendar-based romance.  So many did this year that the Hall of Records opened on a Saturday just to marry those romantic souls, even taking appointments.

When a couple gets married at the Hall of Records, they can choose to have the ceremony in one of several non-English languages, Cantonese, Mandarin, Vietnamese, and Spanish among them. Four years of high school Spanish classes, and a little help from a couple of fluent friends, qualify me as a bilingual marriage commissioner.  I can conduct weddings en Español.  The English to Spanish ratio on an average Friday is 4:1, mas o menos.

There were 5 commissioners on hand Saturday, more than enough to handle the traffic.  Since I was the only Spanish speaker, I got all the Spanish-language weddings.  That kept me very busy. The groups ranged from 3-person walk-ins to full houses chanting "Beso! Beso!" when the ceremony was finished.

One challenge with Spanish weddings is that I know the ceremony very well, but I'm not good at free-style conversation.  I can say "Please silence your phones." or "Do you have rings?" but trouble arises with something complicated like "You have to go downstairs and ask the clerk for your legal certificate, which might take 10-15 minutes before it's ready."  Luckily, at least one person in every group spoke or understood enough English that I could communicate the next steps after the ceremony, and I struggled my way through it a couple times in Spanish, just for good measure.

We opened at 9 and got everyone done by 2, which was a credit mostly to the wonderful clerks who got folks registered, including a bunch of walk-ins, fixed typos, and made sure licenses got recorded properly.  They even got us donuts and pizza!

Fashion report
Lots of beautiful dresses and suits, of course.  Why get married on Valentine's Day if you're not going to do it right?

By the numbers
Total ceremonies: 40
Ceremonies conducted by me: 15
Spanish ceremonies: 14
Formal wear: 12
Donuts eaten: 2

A Runner's Job Is Never Done

Original post date: October 3, 2014

Miss Janet has often referred to the Hall of Records as the Marriage Factory - hence, the title of this blog.  That's mostly a joke about the way you enter as two people and exit joined as one couple. Sometimes, though, the analogy is closer than might seem appropriate. A couple weeks ago, I got to the Hall shortly before 9AM on Friday and there was a couple waiting to be married.  From that time until I left at 12:30, the desk was never free of licenses.

The clerks and I asked each other: why today? There didn't seem to be a numerological reason, no 8/8/08 or 11/12/13.  It was busy because it was busy.  By 10:30, it was time to engage a runner.

When an officiant finishes a wedding, it can take 10-15 minutes to get the next wedding ready: leave the wedding room, wait for an elevator, run to the desk, grab and examine the next license, call and assemble the entire wedding party, wait for another elevator, and get the party into the wedding room.

A runner is a staff member who gathers the paperwork and the wedding party and brings them upstairs to the wedding room.  A good runner can do all that while another wedding is happening, saving enough time to squeeze in an extra ceremony per hour.

From 10:30 to 12:30, my runner was bringing up a new couple + guests every 7-10 minutes.  I'd finish a ceremony and meet the couple in the waiting room.  They reviewed the license while the previous couple waited for their certificate and took pictures.  Once the new couple were ready, on we went with the wedding.  Repeat as necessary.  When the dust settled, we'd done 20 ceremonies in 3 1/2 hours.

Noted among them:
Not 1, not 2, but 3 male same-sex couples who dressed alike (or at least very similarly) to get married.  In 2 of the cases, the only way to tell the outfits apart was by the tie. That kind of synchronization is very unusual in other weddings.  Sure, there's color co-ordination - the groom's pocket square matches the bride's slip color - but the twinsies look seems exclusive to the male-male couples.

After a particularly joyous opposite-sex wedding, the guests formed a prayer circle.  Though I am not permitted to join any form of worship, the worship itself is certainly allowed. This one was serious, with praising and "Amen"s bouncing off the walls.  There was also talk of the wife's duty to surrender to her husband, as adherents surrender to the church. Not how I feel, but the couple seemed fine with it.  I hope their faith and joy last throughout their marriage, although I wouldn't press too hard on the "obey" part if I were him.

A Language Kerfuffle

Original post date: January 7, 2013

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!

Typos & Shoes

Original post date: October 10, 2012

This was a week of typos and shoes.

When a couple comes to the Hall of Records to get married, they enter all the information for the bride and groom themselves, into a computer in the lobby.  Any mistakes made in that section are their fault.  When they get to the counter, they hand-write the witness information for the clerk.  My handwriting is appalling, so I can understand how clerks sometimes mistake an "a" for an "o" or a "1" for a "7".

Before the couple pays for the license, they read it over, looking for typos.  The couple is not always in the clearest frame of mind, which may explain why our upstairs clerk had to reprint 3 licenses during my shift.  It wasn't just one kind of mistake.  We had a misspelled witness name, an incorrect birth date, and a missing apartment number.

Moral: Always get the couple to read the license first.

Fashion report
Great-looking and well-matched heels were the order of the day.  A bride with a black dress and a rose in her hair had rose heels with black trim.  Sparkly silver dress = sparkly silver heels. And what is a white sleeveless dress without white heels?

Best post-vow shout by a groom: "Go A's!"  Let's hope...

FIRE!

Original post date: September 4, 2012

The big story at the marriage factory Friday morning wasn't weddings - it was fire.  A fight between two of the people who sleep in the Hall of Records entryway turned nasty, and someone set fire to the front of the building.  The recording department had to move into the area where I sit.  Normally, that space is almost empty, with all the clerks out front, helping customers.  This week, folks I'd never met with piles of papers were at every desk.  It felt claustrophobic.  Surprising how habituated one gets to an environment.

There was a wedding waiting as soon as I arrived.  The bride & groom wore flip-flops & shorts and chewed gum.  Luckily, the day got better from there.

I did more Spanish than English weddings, including a multi-lingual ceremony where the mother of the bride spoke no English and the groom spoke no Spanish.  Everyone was happy at the end.  Four of the eleven brides Friday morning had the same name. I don't think that's happened before.

Fashion report

• A pair of blond twin boys in matching corduroy coats - adorable!
• Matching rhinestone shoes (looking ever so slightly like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hirst-Love-Of-God.jpg) and fingernails
• A cute dress & leggings that looked like they'd been dyed with potato-print
• A matching white dress and feathery hair comb

The funniest part of the morning was when I asked a couple if they would be exchanging rings.  She said, "No", and he said "Yes".  She gaped at him as he sheepishly pulled two ring boxes out of his vest pockets.  Surprise!  She was thrilled.

Lessons Learned Pt. 1

Original post date:  July 20, 2012

Lessons learned at the Marriage Factory:

1. Check the marriage license - helps discover couples who will need a ceremony in Mandarin, Thai, Lao, etc.  The dates of birth helps pick out who's who in the lobby - not every bride wears a wedding dress.

2. Ask if everyone's there.  Mention feeding the meter and using the restroom, or people will forget where their witnesses have gone.

3. Go over the license with everyone before starting the ceremony. Fixing typos before things start is free and easy.  Fixing legal documents is neither.

4. Nervous laughter during the ceremony is normal.  So are tears, so try to have tissues ready.

5. Nervous people can't remember more than 5 or 6 words at a time, so parcel out the vows accordingly.

6. Children are bored by weddings, and a wooden bench is really loud when a child is repeatedly kicking it.

7. And most importantly, be nice to the clerks!