I Do, Again

(As I sit down to write this I am experiencing one of the true joys of having a full-blown husband: "Did you bring in the suitcases?" I am also getting an insightful lesson on the joys of parenting: "Kitty looked like she had to poop, but she was just sitting there like her butthole was about to explode!")

It's officially legal. Mack and I spent Thanksgiving weekend in Las Vegas saying, "I do," "I will," "Absolutely," and "Yes." We, along with 57 other couples at the courthouse between 6 and 6:30 p.m., secured a Nevada-based marriage license and headed to the Garden of Love Chapel to make promises to one another. It was a dream come true, at least for all the white trash blood cells running through my body.
To prepare for the ceremony, I bought a bottle of champagne I know to be $3.99 at a liquor store for $14 at the hotel gift shop and put on some mascara. Then I subjected Mack to some Before shots so I could give my mom a visual reproduction.
Mack and I with our Nervous Faces on.A stretch Hummer limo snaked its way into the valet/taxi drop off at the Frontier hotel, an old Vegas lodge whose atmosphere left me with a sore throat and what I'm sure will develop into black lung. We hopped aboard, rode downtown and climbed the steps to the Las Vegas marriage license branch. We received congratulations from everyone from the beggars on the corner to the officers by the door as we made our way inside and through the necessary paperwork. I felt a distinct sense of pride wash over me for being able to complete the one-page form after listening to the guy at the window next to mine try to explain that he has no idea what his father's name is even though a Jr. is affixed to the end of his own name.

We paid our $55 and joked about where the divorce branch is with the clerk, although Mack's mom has already informed me that divorce is not a tradition in her family when I joked about it over dinner one night. Then we carried our white enveloped documents back to our limo and headed off to the Chapel in the Middle of a Construction Site.

The Chapel was quaint but still boasted five altars. We picked the one that was the most readily available, the second most ugly one, and were herded to the bouquet wall to pick from a rainbow of silk flower bouquets. I chose a red, blue and yellow number roughly the size of my torso and assigned Mack a purple boutonniere that he delicately stabbed through his sweater. Then we were hypnotized by the voice of the Baptist minister into thinking we were doing a rehearsal when we were actually doing the real ceremony. I caught on just before I took off down the three-foot long aisle.Our ceremony, which cost $149 plus tips, which totaled about $200 when it was all said and done (limo drivers, photographer, videographer, minister, the guy at the window we asked to take a picture of us with our license), lasted about four minutes from start to finish, including time at the end for the photographer to take some blurry shots of our rings. It was very sweet, very short, very direct and very complete.
Afterward, we headed to the New York, New York Casino to ride the rollercaoster. I didn't think of the perfect metaphor that is for a marriage until afterward, when I jokingly said to my mom, "We went ahead and got our ups and downs out of the way." I have a feeling that marriage, like any long term relationship, will be one of those things that makes you grin from ear to ear at certain times, that makes you lose your stomach at others, that makes you want to scream, that makes you laugh, that makes your head hurt, that goes by way too quickly and that, when it's all said and done, really is thrilling.