This time last year, everyone was stressing out over the plans for our foster daughter's wedding. My job was making the dress, her grandmother in Alabama was prepping for hosting the rehearsal dinner and reception, and the bride and groom to be were losing sleep over everything else. It was expensive and unwieldy, but in the end, it came out all right. We all made it there, made it through the ceremony, and the first of our kids successfully married.
Our younger daughter, whose best friend is the one who became our foster daughter, watched this process and learned from it. She saw how the whole thing tied the couple in knots, trying to sort out all the details. She didn't want to put any of us through that, including herself. A couple of weeks ago, she and her fiance had a serious conversation. She had just been hired to a new job with good benefits, including health insurance. Their 7th dating anniversary was fast approaching. They decided, why not? There were plenty of solid economic reasons to go ahead and make it official. And to cave in to sentimentality, they would put it on their anniversary. With only a week and a half of warning, they told us they were going to get married. Naturally, a barrage of questions followed: who will perform a ceremony? Will you just go to the Justice of the Peace? Will you change your name? What will you wear? The answer to everything was: this is going to be easy. No ceremony. No name change. Just a cute dress from a regular store, not a big, elaborate meringue. (I spent hours with her shopping yesterday, and gave up after three stores. She wore me out, and took her foster sister to complete the search.)
At lunchtime today, we drove our daughter and her fiance to the County Clerk and Registrar in Boulder, choosing that city because it was where they started dating on this date seven years ago. They learned from the clerk that they were supposed to have filled out an online application first, but they were able to take care of that at computer stations set up for that purpose. They had the option of taking the license and reciting vows in front of a judge, cleric, or some other sort of dignitary, or they could just sign the certificate as parties of the contract. They chose the latter. They sat at a table, filled out the certificate exactly as directed in the example, and that was it. No flowers, no music, no giant credit card bill. We went to lunch, stopped for pictures with the snowstorm bearing down on the mountains behind them, and went home. And now two of my kids are married. The eldest may be a holdout for a long time to come.
I can't remember where it happened, either as soon as they got the certificate, or on the way to the restaurant, but my new son-in-law, who is a fan of the classics and studies Latin for fun, read a quote. He then translated it for us. I asked him to send me the text, to put in here. It seemed like the closest thing to a cermonial vow either of them made all day.
Si amor vincit omnia, Fortuna ipsa Venusque nobis gladium triumphi donarent.
(If love conquers all, Fortuna and Venus herself have given us the sword of triumph.)
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