How to Get a Marriage License

I'm still not sure how I feel about all the legalities of marriage. I believe marriage is a spiritual covenant so it just feels kind of weird to have to sign papers and pay taxes and all that. However, I suppose there is something cool about being legally bound to each other.

We first attempted to get a marriage license a few weeks ago, by going to the Justice of the Peace. That was the wrong place to go but I didn't know that. We stood in line with juvenile delinquents and people paying traffic tickets. When we got to the window we announced we were getting married with a silly grin. She told us to go to the county clerk, the office of whom was of course closed that day.

So we tried again last week. We found the right office and it was open, no big deal. (Although there was a guy distributing literature that said "lower gas prices to Bush's IQ", which was very romantic.) The clerk said he knew my FH was not from Texas because he had such an accent. He has not lived outside of this state for about 25 years. The lack of an accent is not an accent, but East Texans have trouble with that concept sometimes.

Any way, everything went along fine until time to inscribe our name on the official document. Without even asking, the clerk put "Mr. and Mrs. husband's first husband's last". Ugh. I asked him why I didn't get a name. Then we explained that our name would be hyphenated. Thankfully we caught him before the process was finished. But c'mon, it's the freaking 21st century. Doesn't he think that perhaps at least someone wants to do things a little differently? Sigh.

Later that day we went to pick up a Bible that we had engraved. As a wedding gift our pre-marital counselor gave us a family Bible. The store clerk couldn't find it because he didn't understand our name. When he finally located it, he said "oh, right, that combined name one".

Just a small taste of life with a hyphenated name, I'm sure. It's going to be worth the trouble.