I am officially married.

We set off on July 2 at the ass crack of dawn, because my fear was we’d get to the county courthouse to get the license and they’d be closed because of the holiday. All the girls (The Big One, The Little One, Genius Girl and The Neurotic Dog) were great travelers, and no threats were made toward the general vicinity of the backseat.

We got to the courthouse by 12:30 and began the paperwork process. The first question the clerk asked was, “How did you meet?” I looked at my boyfriend and thought, “Do they need that information?” It turns out, the clerk just liked to keep a running tab on that for her own personal information. I guess when you’re a civil servant, you have to have some kind of hobby. She noticed we had two different state licenses, and asked if we’d met on the Internet, and since she’s started keeping track, in 1999 I believe, she’d had 124 couples. That’s a pretty high number, considering it’s the Tulsa County Courthouse. Anyway, we explained the story and she seemed pleased and decided to count us in her tally. We got the license and celebrated with coneys from Coney-Islander.

Sidebar: I would absolutely kill myself with a veg-o-matic if I had to work in a civil servant workspace. Everything in the Tulsa courthouse was putty beige, and the equipment was ancient. Everything looked so grimy, too. I’d want to paint it all bright yellow or something. The DMV here is the same way. Our tax dollars at work.

The rest of the weekend was great. The Big One, Genius Girl and I went to the Tulsa Flea Market on Saturday morning, then got pedis. I think it was the first time for both girls and two weeks later, my toes still look cute. My mother was generous to provide the food for the reception, so we made a trip to Sam’s and boyfriend picked up the gorgeous cake.

We headed for camp on Sunday, and the festivities began. My concern was that there would be no kids The Big One’s age, and that was my reasoning for taking her BFF, Genius Girl. I was completely wrong. There were many high school and college age kids, and pre-school kids, but only two The Little One’s age, and they were boys, so we had some clingy-ness issues, but she warmed up after the square dancing after the wedding.

There was a threat of rain in the forecast, but we couldn’t have ordered better weather. The ceremony was scheduled for 7:00 PM, and in July in Oklahoma, it can still be brutally hot, but it was just warm enough. We had a few guests come in; mostly old friends and family. One special guest and his wife who drove up from Dallas and another, (who happened to be the first girl BF slept with) drove over from Arkansas. My BGF and his boyfriend gifted us the most beautiful flowers and I had planned the wedding décor around those.

When we got to the altar, the rector whispered at me, “Are you OK?” and I just blurted out, “Everything is just so pretty!” because it was. The light was perfect and the flowers on the altar popped out against the green and blue of the woods. The ceremony went off without a hitch. My brother did a reading from Song of Solomon and Genius Girl sang “All You Need is Love.” We had a cake-and-punch reception at the camp’s lodge covered porch, and campers and guests could eat or square dance.

I’m normally very anal about details when it comes to things like this, but I really just let go of that. In fact, about 4 hours before the ceremony, I was sitting at the pool with one of the campers, and her sister, (old friends from camp, and the sister happens to be The Husband’s aunt by marriage) and the sister asked if she’d like her to play a song at the end and if I had any preferences. I said, no, and made the comment that this was the most half-assed thing I'd ever done. I told her just pick what you like, and she and some of the other campers ended up singing a forgotten favorite of mine, Harry Chapin’s “Circle.” Which really turned out to be the perfect song.

It was really great to be able to enjoy every minute of it, and not have to worry about if the right spoons were out or if there was enough ice. Every wedding should be so easy.

My father has some pre-Alzheimer’s/dementia symptoms, but is still independent. He just gets very agitated and uncomfortable when he is out of his usual comfort zone. We had just walked up the hill from the chapel to the lodge’s porch, and he was at my elbow, wanting a piece of cake. I know this was a casual wedding, but I thought that was something traditionally done later during the reception. But we went ahead and cut the cake, with my dad at my elbow with a plate in his hand, practically wanting the first piece. The Husband and I managed to get in the traditional photo of us eating the cake, then I served my dad the second piece. I didn’t think much of it at the time, just thought dad was REALLY hungry for cake or something. Turns out, Mom told him they could leave as soon as the cake was served.

I wonder if there are any studies linking Alzheimer’s with autism.

Dad did have an interesting story for us, though. I inherited a pin from my grandmother that had belonged to her mother-in-law. My grandfather’s mother had died when he was about nine, and she was a Belt. I remember my grandmother wearing the pin to church and funerals, and it has become a tradition in our family for the granddaughters and great-granddaughters to wear it at their weddings. It’s a very beautiful and a one-of-a-kind piece, but no one really knows how my great-grandmother came to be in possession of it, other than my grandmother’s explanation, “She was a Belt, and they had money.” I had pinned it on to the streamers in my bouquet for the ceremony. Dad came up to us immediately after the ceremony, and launched into a story about how his father had given it to his mother. Apparently, my grandfather went to live with his uncle John (his father’s brother), after his father died when he was a teenager. Uncle John was low on scruples and somehow took possession of it. When my grandfather married my grandmother, he paid a visit to Uncle John, and flat out told Uncle John he wanted the pin and was not leaving without it, even if it meant he had to kill Uncle John for it. I don’t recall any family stories of my grandfather doing jail time for murder, so he must have made a peaceful retrieval. It's also an interesting story how I came to inherit the pin in the first place, and not the oldest granddaughter, but I'll save that for another time.

We all returned safely, and The Husband started his new job the day after we got back, so everything worked out as it was supposed to.

Anyway, everyone got cake and a good time was had by all.