Trip Report!
So last night at work, I went on Facebook ~1am to share a video of some guy doing magic tricks for dogs, and when I scrolled down, I saw the news that our county's clerk office would be open Saturday 9am-1pm to issue marriage licenses, and that my friend Ted would be going to officiate marriages. He wanted a couple people along to take pictures, grab comestibles, and act as witnesses in case there wasn't a big crowd. I immediately decided that I should go. I always
talk about how I support all this stuff, but I never actually seem to
do anything, and now I had a chance to actually be there for people. I called up my boss to tell him I wouldn't be able to work Saturday night. He was a bit angry, but he'll get over it.
When I got off work at 7am, I swung by the bakery for some pretzels, and headed home. I wasted no time eating, then took a shower, dressed in a nice sweater I borrowed from my dad, borrowed my mom's camera, and got on my way. I got into the city around 8:45, and in my haste to get to the clerk's office, I parked in a time-restricted zone.
I headed quickly out of the parking garage and down to Main Street, and found my way over to the clerk's office, where a couple people were handing out "Love Wins in Michigan" buttons.
When I stepped into the building, I was immediately hit by a wall of noise. There was so much confusion and milling around of people. It was amazing.
A clerk announced that anyone who didn't already have their number needed to head downstairs to get one, and all the officiants were going to another side of the building. I went over there to meet with Ted, and there were three other officiants already there. Ted introduced me to his friend Annette, who would also be taking pictures there. After a couple of minutes, the first license was issued, and I forgot to take off the lens cap of my camera and missed my chance at a picture.
They told the officiants to head down to the basement where all the marriages would be taking place. With only four officiants in the group, Ted expected he'd be having a busy day. When we got downstairs, however, we found there were a
ton of officiants there already, a total of 22 priests, priestesses, ministers, reverends, and rabbis. 22 people that volunteered their time with less than 12 hours notice.
The room was even more packed than the area upstairs, and Ted and I barely managed to squeeze our way inside, where the first couple was having their marriage officiated by a brand new judge, performing her very first act as judge. As they were pronounced married, there was a huge cheer.
As they made their way outside, the room began to settle down some, and the officiants were told to find spots at the tables around the edges of the room. Ted found a spot in a corner at a table with ministers from the Universal Unitarian church. One of the ministers, a woman named Gail, was like a force of nature. She performed so many marriages. Even people that didn't know her wanted her to do their marriages, as they saw her do marriages for people before them. Ted got to do two marriages over the hours we were there, both near the end of the day. Annette and I wandered around taking pictures of the ceremonies and getting email addresses of the couples so that Annette could send them the finished, touched up pictures later. I wasn't very good at the picture taking at first, but after a while I found a setting that worked for me and got a couple good ones at least.
The room got very hot with all the people in there. About an hour in, Annette called a friend to bring a couple cases of water, and when he arrived, we found he had brought some cakes too, so the couples could celebrate with a little wedding cake. Flowers were also donated by someone, so that any couple that wanted them would have something to hold. There was much laughter, much cheering, and many happy tears shed during the day. It was incredibly emotional just being there with so many happy people, so many people that had waited for so long for this to happen. At 1pm, the clerks stopped issuing licenses, but the kept the building open so that people with their licenses could keep getting married. It was about this time that the first couple approached Ted to have them marry him. They were an older couple, who had been together 17 years already. I was honored to be able to sign their form as a witness. My camera was nearly dead at this point, but I still got some good pictures of them throughout their ceremony, and one last one of them holding each other, smiling right at the camera and shedding happy tears.
Shortly after their marriage was done, the room was shushed to silence, as the judge from earlier married two of the officiants. Another couple, younger than the first, but still having been together for seven years, approached Ted to be married. They were the couple with the very last marriage license of the day. They had a larger group with them, so Ted went over to the other side of the room to marry them in a more open space. They had two beautiful children with them, one 15 months old, the other just 5 weeks. While their paperwork was being completed after the ceremony, I chatted for a while with one of their mothers, talking about just how happy the day had been.
On our way out, Ted and I thanked the two police deputies who were there for the occasion, as well as a violin player who had shown up to play music for the weddings in the last hour or so. We said goodbyes to a couple other officiants, Ted did a short interview for a reporter, and we went on our way back to our cars. Turns out I got a parking ticket. Oh well, even that couldn't wipe the smile from my face.