We did it!

June 25, 2008

Dear friends,

Well, where do I start? My partner and I arrived in California on the 18th of June to WARM weather. We left the pup at home and still miss him everyday, but we were afforded the opportunity to truly elope without him.

On June 19th, we shopped in the morning and received a phone call from my mother and father that went sort of like this...
Mom: Dad just got done at Grandma's house.
Stacy: Okay
Mom: Do you want to go over to the courthouse now while we have time?
Stacy: Sure. We will meet you there.

We hopped out of Nordstrom's Rack and took off across Imperial to Norwalk. When we got there, there was a huge tent off to the side and a giant line in the front of the building. My partner and I worried about how long the line was, but I didn't know what it was for. We walked in and I asked if it was the line for the marriage licenses. The woman said no. She then asked if we had filled ours out online. We did, so she ushered us over to the line with the green sign. How romantic was that?

Anyway, there were about 4 other couples in line and only one we thought was gay. We got called to the next available window after the woman wearing the pink stained sweatpants had left. They were getting married that day too! What luck!

We filled out the paperwork online, so all we had to do was sign the paper and tell the guy we wanted to get married, get an additional copy of the license, and pay for the same-day ceremony service in the tents. My partner didn't like the idea of getting married in a tent, but I thought there was so much sanctity in the process, it had to be done. We had to then swear we were telling the truth on the license by raising our right hand in front of the plexi-glass window. I almost swooned right then.

We were done paying our bill and were told to exit out the back door to go over to the tent where they would call our number at 12pm. My mom asked if we wanted to request a woman to do the ceremony, but I didn't care, so we just took whomever came up to us.

We were greeted by a very Abe Lincoln looking man named Jim. Jim was sworn in to perform ceremonies especially for the big gay rush. He informed us that this was to be his first official gay ceremony, and that he was tired of doing heterosexual marriages all day. He said the most beautiful things in our cubicle with paper wedding bells and hearts attached to the walls under the tent. It was air conditioned, so I can't really complain. Even though the sarcasm is flowing, I could not have asked for a better marriage ceremony. We found out that Jim goes to the same church that our friend Ed (the pastor for the ceremony next year) goes to. He knows Ed very well. That was awesome! It was fate!

We called or texted everyone we could and then posted the rest on facebook. We are happier than we have ever been.

Love,

Stacy