I Can See Your Expression When the Phone Rings

Maybe it was a bad idea to let my parents pick the Justice of the Peace. It’s no secret that the Velvet family likes to shop for price.

This past weekend, X and I went to Connecticut to work on some more details. I’m not sure why I thought a “small” wedding of just family and a few friends would be any easier. Damn. You still have to do all the same crap, you just mail less invitations and make less place cards. Yes. Sigh. Place cards. X thought that since it’s such a small group we could let people decide where to sit. Um. No. Have you met my family? We need to make a very strategic plan on who sits where. If we can keep my sister-in-law in a different city from my mom, we’ll be in good shape. When I was first making phone calls for a venue, every Venue Manager said the same thing at first: Describe your perfect wedding.

“Oh, that’s easy. One where my mom doesn’t punch my sister-in-law and one where my dogs can be a part of it.”

This did make everyone laugh. I think they thought I was joking. I wasn’t.

We went to the town hall to apply for the marriage license. Lucky for me, my BFF from high school works there and did the whole thing for us on the spot. No waiting! No blood tests! No proof of X’s divorce! No charge! Thanks Divorcee!!!! (Funny, I know. Even funnier she changed her status on Facebook to “engaged” this morning.)

As she was filling out the license, her co-worker, sitting at a desk behind her, said, “Is Larry marrying you?” I said, “Um, yeah, I think that’s it.” She said, “You’re not getting married at the Motel 6* are you?” I said, “Uh, yes.” She starts shaking her head. “He called here the other day to see if you had applied for your license yet. He said someone called him and said his daughter was getting married and asked if he would perform the ceremony and he couldn’t remember your names, the location, the date or the time.”

X and I looked at each other and started laughing. Divorcee said this was sort of par for the course with this guy and suggested we keep calling him to remind him. Then she said we should plan to send someone to pick him up. Jesus. Christ. She told me stories about people we went to high school with who never picked up their marriage licenses and she had to run them over to their wedding. Fuck DC, I love small towns.

When we went back to my parents house we told them what happened with the JP. My dad called him right then and gave him the info all over again. He said that the JP lost the paper where he wrote everything down. Wow. Just, wow. I was like, “Um, Dad? We sort of need him.” He kept saying “Don’t worry, don’t worry.”

Yeah. I think we need a Plan B. I told X since we have zero connection to this JP and he might not even show up, maybe we should consider just finding a Greek Orthodox priest to marry us. X is working on that today. Yikes. The only problem is that Greek Orthodox weddings last like three days.

We did get a cake last week. Devils food with cannoli cream. Devils food cakes and cannolis are my two favorite desserts in the whole world, and whoever thought of putting them together is a god damned genius.   As opposed to us picking a JP name out of a hat, at least getting the cake at this bakery felt right. It’s from the same bakery where my mom got my cake for my baptism.

We’re down to 8 weeks people.

*I’m not really getting married at the Motel 6. I promise.**

**It’s Super 8.