Tears and Happy Endings

First, I have to tell you that this story has a happy ending (yep, that's where the title comes from). However, it's going to take us a little bit to get there so bear with me on this journey. Everyone knows I'm getting married and nothing takes a blushing bride to tears like someone telling her that "she cannot get married." Yep, in those exact words. And this phrase has no weight except when its spoken by the only people with the power to give you a wedding license. Yes, again.

So let's go back to a bright sunny day on June 1. I love the first day of the month. There is so much hope and promise that a new month brings with it. If you had a really bad month, it's so easy to put all your money on the greatness that the next month will have. It usually takes at least until the second day of the month to determine that things are still going downhill. Not in this case! Nope! June 1 was the day that my fiance and I decided we would go to to get our marriage license. There is a waiting period in the USVI before you get married so we left ourselves plenty of time.

I actually wanted to go later because we were coming up on my fiance's "birthday weekend," but we decided June 1 would be a great day to begin our journey of starting our lives together as husband and wife. My fiance has also apparently never heard of "birthday weekend" which was shocking to me so I made up "birthday month" as well and we had a really fun time making jokes about it. Well, "birthday weekend" actually entailed horseback riding and dinner and a boy scout camp open house so I really didn't want that ruined. I never thought anything bad could happen from a trip to get a marriage license. I've never heard of such a thing.

So we got to where we needed to be on the afternoon of June 1. It started raining a little bit and that may have been our first sign, but we live in the tropics and rain is usually a relief from the heat and rain does good things here. It took us about a half hour to get to where we were going and we had all our documents ready. My fiance even wore pants and real shoes (when it's this hot, shorts and flip flops are the usual uniform).

It took the office that grants marriage licenses no more than five minutes to proclaim that my fiance and I could not get married for at least two to three months. No kidding. Someone actually set us down in a very small space and told us point blank that we could not get married. Now, I know what you're thinking, you're an attorney (and I am still licensed to practice law in Illinois), couldn't you just say fancy attorney words and fix this? Yes, of course I tried, and I quickly realized that fancy attorney words would not work. In fact, even fancy things your favorite attorney actors on TV in these types of situations could do would not permit us to be legally married by our wedding date. So I tried the next best thing; I pleaded to have another option than just a solid no.

We went to eat plantains and chicken while we waited for the results of my pleading. I don't think anyone at that chicken place saw anyone more sad trying to eat a plantain. It was plantain de tears, a new menu item for them. I love plantains, I have never been so sad eating one in my life. Of all the things that I thought could possibly go wrong with the wedding (and up until now, my fiance and I just said we'd go along with anything that happened), I never thought someone would tell us we couldn't do the one thing we just spent a year planning.

So we got the call and the answer was "no but maybe if... and we won't know the answer until tomorrow morning." We drove back really dazed. We tried to do everything we could to take our mind off what was really happening even though we couldn't really wrap our heads around it (I will save everyone from the boring details). We hugged a lot of dogs that night. Then morning came and I told my fiance to have his pants and shoes ready in case we had to go back to get our license again. I was hopeful. I got the call pretty early that morning and it was a "no." I pleaded again. I was told again that "maybe."

We were really close to "birthday weekend" now. I spent the day without plantains or much of an appetite. Nobody gave me an answer either way and the day ended. I came home and I broke down. I was not a fan of anything that night. We came up with some plans, one of which was to go to Vegas where we knew we could get married without any problems (their license offices are open 365 days/year and until midnight and pretty much anyone can get married there, fyi). We both love Vegas so why not have a really expensive party in St. Croix, go on our honeymoon and then get married! This was an option.

Now that we had options, it was time for birthday weekend and we started with touring the boy scout camp. It was great. Then we went horseback riding in the ocean! Yep, you read that right, in the ocean! The horses took us up to our waist fully clothed and we went through the rainforest. It was amazing and for about two hours we focused on nothing but not falling off those horses. It was a "magical" experience as we call it here. Even my fiance thought it was "magical" and he has never been on a horse before. Then we had dinner and it was a nice day.

On Sunday, we mostly worked and finished some wedding things that we needed to do because were still having our really expensive party no matter what, we weren't going to ruin this for our family and friends who had non-refundable tickets and reservations. We also realized that going to Vegas may not be the right option for us but we live really close to Miami so we had a day trip planned as a plan B. We would get married before our wedding and then walk down aisle and renew our vows. It seemed like a better option. I researched tickets, we were set. I still held out hope that maybe Monday would come and this small little nightmare would be over somehow.

On Monday, I woke up super early. Even the dog didn't want to get up yet (but she laid out on a pillow in the cutest way possible so it became a great picture opportunity). I got dressed and it was still super early so I decided to go to work early. As I was driving into town, I got a call from the licensing office. They "found a way" to give us a license. Now granted, this "way" was one I suggested in the beginning but we weren't going to delve into the details, we were too tired. I rushed back, got my fiance up and into pants and we were off. Everyone was super nice to us and we got it done... or so we thought. I got back to work and everyone was hugs and smiles. Then I get a call again... we had to resign something. But that was okay because what's another hour and some more pants wearing time. So we went and we did whatever we were asked and we came back.

Monday night, we ate some soup and we went to sleep. We were emotionally done. Up until June 1, the hardest thing we had to still finish for the wedding was clean our rings. My fiance thought this would make for a great blog post. I thought otherwise but I was also really emotionally exhausted.

This whole twilight of an experience made me realize something... up until someone told us we could't do it, I didn't realize how important it was to us to be legally married on our wedding day. I know that people actually get legally married before or after all time for various reasons but we didn't have any of those reasons. We're older so we're way past the age where we think that we have to be married. At our age, we get married because we actually want to, because we found the person who makes everyday better and who doesn't annoy us to the point of craziness. It's amazing when you find this, it's like everything any fairy tale you've ever watched tried to show you it could be with a glimpse of what it's like two years down the road when everyone is still alive and well and still talking nicely to each other. And we really wanted to share that real "I do" moment with our family and friends and not tell them we were married when were not or vice versa (otherwise we'd avoid the really expensive party and just rent a boat for a few hour, which is actually my advice to anyone who doesn't want to do the whole party thing).

So when someone tells you can't do something that you think is a basic right that you have, especially if you comply with all the rules that are writing, it becomes a really sad tear-filled plantain experience when someone tells you that you cannot do that. It doesn't make any sense and it isn't fair. I didn't go into details because those aren't important here. What is important is that we're getting married on June 20 (we will not be married before or after that date for sure now) and we are so excited for everyone who is coming from the states to join us next week, and we're equally excited to have our friends here join us as well. See you soon :)