DC Elopement (April 1)
I've had tabs open for a few months on which states are the easiest to get married in. We can't legally marry in the UK, as he's on a work visa and mine is a visitor one. Robert, reasonably, doesn't want to involve any additional countries, and the US is a lot closer than Australia— so we know we're in for a weekend away.
Washington State requires a three day waiting period for a license. If you get an officiant, they can take up to thirty days to turn in the paperwork. Some states, like Colorado, let you self officiate with no witnesses. Georgia gives a discount to couples who go through premarital counseling.
I don't want to mess around with costs and waiting periods. I want to marry my husband, get the paperwork done, celebrate properly later. We were going to get married anyway, but now it's more important than ever that I get health insurance in the UK and more than a visitor visa so we can legally live in the same country.
Washington DC turns out to be the easiest from London: for $45 and a walk in appointment, you can marry yourselves within a couple of hours. A block away from the Marriage Bureau, you can get your official certificates (three day wait post-ceremony) apostilled for international use.
I'm early pregnant, so I haven't been well. Most days, I barely leave the apartment: a walk in the park, or just to the grocery store. So two flights and a five hour time change is less than appealing. But though I don't manage to shop for something pretty to get married in, I pull myself together enough to drag a backpack to the airport with Robert.
Airplane landings are, apparently, more than I can bear. On the first flight, I discover that the little sick bags in the seat pocket are inadequate both in volume and in waterproof seal. Robert patiently holds the leaking bag (optimistically, I had ordered tomato juice) while our seatmates scrounge takeaway napkins for my face and clothes.
"Don't worry," I mumble, "I'm pregnant, not contagious."
On the second flight, I'm savvy enough to make an ally of the flight attendant, who brings me a spare garbage bag in advance of the inevitable.
At last, we're in DC, exhausted, clothes changed in the airport bathroom, customs eventually cleared.
For an elopement, it's not terribly romantic. But we're together, it's cherry blossom season, and it's hard not to enjoy marrying your beloved. We're taking a long Easter weekend, extra days just in case the bureaucracy doesn't go according to plan.
We're staying in what Robert terms an uncanny valley of hotels: a Holiday Inn until COVID, now a perfectly adequate place to sleep that has neither the pool nor the shuttle service to downtown still advertised on their website. It does still have the continental breakfast, but that comes with a highly involved staff member who carefully watches in case anyone is taking too much scrambled eggs, and to a chosen handful, offers to fix up a plate.
"You doing okay, baby?" She asks me.
Admittedly, I do look a bit peaky. But I'm okay. It's Easter morning, so the Marriage Bureau won't open until tomorrow. We walk in the nearby arboretum and watch families in church clothes picnic on the lawn.
On Monday morning, our Uber to the courthouse reeks of cherry-flavored menthol, talk radio playing "catch a cheater" content. The Marriage Bureau is in the courthouse basement, so we wait through the metal detector line with everybody who's got a court date. The office at the end of the hall has clean instructions to take certain colors of forms that don't match the forms available. I take two, and a clipboard. We're the second happy couple in this morning. All the chairs are lined up in pairs.
It's very like the DMV: mysterious interminable waits while apathetic staff disappear on back-office errands. I think there's one guy who can take our oaths: that we are who we say we are. A woman who takes our case and tries to speed the process: I don't think she actually winks when she calls us forward out of turn, but she gives the impression of it. We couldn't fill in the application online because there's no space for a non-American ID. They find Robert's address perplexing, and fill in "of London" on the official forms, where I get a full address.
It's fine, apparently. We're sent off with a packet of paperwork to go and sign somewhere outside courthouse grounds.
Robert wants to get a fancy pen to commemorate the day. This works out; we actually don't have one to sign the marriage certificate with. So we walk to a pen shop several blocks away, which becomes our official marriage site address.
"Last chance," I smile up at him while waiting for a crosswalk. "Robert, will you marry me?"
I watch him struggle not to make a joke and simply accept.
Technically, I married us. We picked out a lovely pen together, a brand he knew and I've forgotten. Only the officiant actually has to sign under both of our names. And we walked back to the courthouse to turn the paperwork in.
The Marriage Bureau is buzzing by the time we return. Some couples, like us, are casual; others are in full gowns with family present.
"Congratulations," I wish a fellow bride.
"You, too!" She smiles back.
It's still morning and I'm feeling okay. Now that we're married, the day is free. Robert has never been to DC, so we do the full loop around the monuments and down to the cherry trees.
All around the Washington Monument, kites are crashed in the treetops. There's a stage near the Japanese pavilion where children are demonstrating martial arts. On the way to the Jefferson Monument, one of the wedding parties recognizes us from the courthouse and waves hello.
By some minor miracle, I don't crash until dinnertime, so we manage a wedding dinner downtown with fresh pasta and sparkling drinks to toast as newlyweds.
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