Wherein I Almost Marry Someone

I almost got to marry someone.

Now, since this coming June will mark our 6th wedding anniversary for Samara and me, and I'm not a bigamist, I bet I've got some of you confused.

Well, I was sitting there in the Clerk of Court's office today, and a couple had come in to get their marriage license. Once they apply for the license, they have to wait three days and then they can get married. They weren't planning to have a church wedding, so the Clerk started looking in the computer to see if she could schedule it before the magistrate on Monday. He already had something on his calendar, so she picked up the phone and called his desk to see when he could do it.

Apparently he doesn't like doing weddings, because, among other things, after he did his first marriage, he had to do a domestic violence arraignment on the husband the next morning. I figure that's enough to put anyone off marriages. So he didn't want to do it. So the Clerk looks over at me and says, "That's okay. I can commission Aaron and have him do it."

In Alaska, the presiding judge in the judicial district can commission anyone to do a marriage. So besides the regular folks that can do them, i.e. judges, ministers, etc, anyone else can be temporarily given the power. The Clerk of Court has a pre-signed form from our presiding judge to commission someone.

For a few hours this afternoon, I thought I was going to have to dress up all nice and preside over someone's marriage on Monday. But it turns out that the couple decided to have a doctor preside over it, so they're going to get him commissioned instead. Don't ask me why they'd rather have a medical doctor than an attorney.

So, yeah, I almost got to marry someone. Two people, actually. I didn't really want to do it, but at the same time, it seemed like it would make an exciting story, so I was kind of disappointed to find out that I wouldn't be doing it.