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Our Secret Wedding

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courthouse wedding

A few months before our real wedding…
Alan and I went to the courthouse and secretly got married! We hadn’t planned for it to happen that way but decided to do it for health insurance reasons (so romantic). Since I wanted our actual wedding to still feel like our big day, we tried to act as nonchalant as we could about it. Even if I did decide to wear a white dress.

In a truly classy move, we got our marriage license and certificate in one visit using the county’s new Express Marriage Ceremony Service — because nothing says commitment like the word express. Alan kept calling it our drive-thru wedding :).


Our friend Rob came along and asked if I wanted him to take pictures. In my head, I kept thinking, I don’t need pictures of us signing papers, but all of a sudden Mike (the nice clerk who married us) asked if we were ready. (Clearly, per my face, I was not).

I was staring at him blankly, when he told us to face each other and join hands. My heart started beating faster and I could feel myself getting nervous and emotional. Was this really happening? I thought we were just there to sign stuff! I don’t remember exactly what he said, but certain parts (like “through sickness and in health…”) were just like in the movies.

Alan said I do, I said I do and then we kissed. We were married!

what to wear to a courthouse wedding

So even though I hadn’t planned on getting excited, it was thrilling! And I’m so glad Rob knew what was going on and was thoughtful enough to snap some pictures of us. (Thanks, Rob!)

Afterwards, since we didn’t tell many people (not even my parents–eek!), wear rings or start my name change process, life was business as usual. It was just a sweet secret between the two of us which didn’t dampen the experience of our real wedding one bit.

p.s. Does this count as eloping?

Last modified: January 10, 2019