The wedding rehearsal was on a Friday evening. Everyone was there on time and ready to practice - except the bride and groom. When they finally walked in I could see that there was trouble. They both seemed very upset. I walked over to them and in my most cheery voice asked, "What's up?"
The bride, with tears forming in her eyes, said, "I had 39 things to do today and I did every single one of them. He had one thing to do today - pick up the marriage license - and he didn't do it!"
Well now, this was a situation that wasn't covered in Seminary. I excused myself and called my Circuit Counselor. He gave me the bad news: "George, in the state of Missouri you cannot conduct a marriage service without the license. See if they can cancel the wedding until another time, maybe the following weekend. Otherwise, you can have a service. But it cannot contain vows or the pronouncement of marriage."
How do you cancel the service when the invitations have already been sent out and family has arrived from out of town? There was no chance to postpone so I told the couple that we could do a stripped down service but the actual marriage would have to wait until they could present the license to me. You can imagine how much fun we had at the rehearsal.
About 11 am the following morning I received a call from the groom's mother. Her exact words were:"This disaster of a wedding is still on!" It turned out that the groom went to the office to talk with his boss. While he was lamenting the fact that he had ruined the day for his bride a co-worker walked in. The co-worked learned about the absent marriage license and said, "My wife works at the county office. I'll have her go and get the license!"
And she did. At two o'clock that afternoon the groom and I walked to the front of the altar and waited for the processional to begin. And we waited. And we waited.
Turned out that at the last second the bride didn't like her make up and decided to fix it. While the congregation snickered at the delay (do you know how hard it is to keep a smile plastered on your face for seven minutes? You try it!), I wondered, "Maybe these guys aren't ever going to get married."
Ah, but the bride finally appeared. The marriage service took place. And a year later they wrote to me to say, "You probably can't believe it but we're still married! Our lives are still crazy but we are very happy together."
That's was one crazy day. Which makes me wonder, "Did Annie and Tyler pick up the marriage license?" Of course, they did. They've got it, I'm sure.
I'd better call and check.
