Rusty's Blog

After bandying about several ideas for a wedding ceremony — including standards like Vegas and one which involved us wearing custom ponchos and smashing a vodka-soaked watermelon with a sledge hammer Gallagher-style — Amber and I had settled on just going down to the damn court one day without telling anybody. It was the path of least resistance in terms of both money and effort.

May 9, 2010 will mark the five-year anniversary of us hooking up.^* We consider May 9 our most important anniversary, and as such thought it would be a good day to get married. The problem with May 9, 2010 is it’s a Sunday. So that wouldn’t work since there’s no one in court on Sundays.

After that, we asked our accountant whether there would be a tax advantage to marry this year or next. He ran some numbers and found it wouldn’t make much difference.

Next we decided we should just pick a day we were both off work and go ahead and do it.

We both had the week between Christmas and New Years off, but we were in Augusta the 24th through the 26th. Then I was at my parents’ house the 27th. Then the tree guy was coming on the 30th. Then I was going to the Peach Bowl the 31st.

So that left the 28th and 29th. My parents were married Dec. 28, so that was appealing to us, but Amber’s sister^** Crystal wanted to come to town and couldn’t come that day, so that whittled the day down to the 29th.

Getting the license

We went the 28th to the DeKalb County courthouse (the new one, not the old one) to get our license since we wanted to be in and out the actual day of the ceremony.

If you’ve never been there, you’re missing a treat. It’s seven stories tall, built in a modern architectural style in 1966 and 1967, and towers over the Decatur skyline. Some might call it a monstrosity or a blight, but they don’t understand that true beauty comes from within.

You walk in the front door and go through the metal detectors, then through a hall to the atrium. You can either hop on the elevators or read a directory. Marriage licenses are in the basement, along with pistol licenses and the snack bar.

After taking the elevator to the basement, you wind through a hall past the snack bar. There are two signs for “marriage and pistol licenses” on the wall in the hall, then one more MARRIAGE AND PISTOL LICENSES —> sign outside the room. There are also makeshift printed signs reminding you the court only accepts cash and that there are no ATMs inside.

Inside it’s like a doctor’s waiting room, except there are people wearing suits and wedding dresses filling out forms instead of sick people.

They give you a clipboard with explicit instructions not to write on the instructions page. The form asked if we were related, had “sex” fields under the bride and groom sections even though gay marriage isn’t allowed in Georgia, and was generally confusing.

We turned in our form and were asked to hold up our hands and swear we were telling the truth. Then we paid our $58 (cash only) fee, and were given an envelope containing our license and AIDS and Sickle Cell Anemia information packets.

The ceremony

Ceremonies are held on the first floor rather than in the basement. Instead of taking the elevator downstairs, you just walk past the atrium and turn right, where there’s another long hall, only lined with wooden pews. To the left is the door labeled Magistrate Court, and an intercom and directions that say to press the green button.

We mentioned Crystal came with us (this is now today, Dec. 29). We also asked our friends Thomas and Nikki to come and take photos. None of us really wanted to push the button, but I eventually did.

(press) “Hello…” (unpress)

“Yes?”

(press) “We’re here for a wedding. Do we just sit down?” (unpress)

“Yes, we’ll come out.”

So we sat and waited. And waited. Other people who hadn’t seen us buzz came up and buzzed, equally as befuddled. Eventually someone came out and said they would collect marriage licenses, and so I handed her ours.

We waited some more, and more people buzzed. Wedding hours were from 1:30 to 3, and we were starting to get a little worried they would turn us away after not finishing the rest of the queue before quitting time. The woman answering the buzzer told yet someone else that the weddings would start when the judge arrived. He was more than half an hour late.

Things finally started moving along a little after 2, and we saw it was moving quickly enough that we didn’t really need to worry. Other than that little bit of anxiety, I have no complaints, because the people watching was superb.

There were several couples ahead of us, including one accompanied by an entourage of at least 30 people. When their ceremony started, someone from their party arrived late and tried to buzz in, and when the buzzer operator wouldn’t let him in, he barged in and we could hear him being chewed out over the intercom.

“Hey, you can’t come in here! Wait outside!”

She ended up letting him in though.

Whenever a couple would finish, the waiting couples sitting on the pews would clap for them. It wasn’t a hearty clapping though, as some people wouldn’t be bothered.

When the couple with the entourage finished, the fellow who was late complained he’d missed the entire ceremony. As we learned, ceremonies don’t take long.

We were called not long after, and led to the first small room on the left. It was cramped, maybe 8×8, making us wonder aloud how the entire entourage fit in there. It was decorated with Christmas lights and tinsel.

We stood near the far wall, and the judge behind the podium. He told Thomas and Nikki to stand against the wall opposite us, and Crystal stood next to Amber, but a couple of feet away.

Then he asked us to move over so we were centered in front of the State of Georgia seal, and asked if we were going to exchange rings. We weren’t.

He told us to look at each other and not at him, then went through a standard-sounding set of vows. We each said “I do” twice, kissed, and that was that.

When we left, the couples in the hall clapped for us.

The reception

Amber, Crystal, Nikki, Thomas and I had lunch at The Brickstore Pub. We split some pretzels, and I had a brat, brunswick stew, and an IPA.

The waitress told us she was getting married in April, and that she wished she could just go to the courthouse and get it out of the way.

Big thanks goes to Thomas for taking our photos and to Nikki and Crystal for being there!

^* – If my future child is reading this, “hooking up” is a phrase people used in the late 20th century and early 21st century to describe having sex without being in a committed relationship.

^** – Technically not related, but sister nonetheless.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 29th, 2009 at 8:43 pm. It was tagged decatur, dekalb county, dekalb county courthouse, dekalb county magistrate court, gdm, goddamn missus, just married, marriage, marriage license, marriage licenses, married, our wedding, pistol license, pistol licenses, wedding, wedding stories, wedding story, weddings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.