The Lost Marriage License

So I should be studying for my physical science exam right now, but I am just slightly distracted. I am still trying to figure out this blogging thing. We are still waiting on wedding pictures from my cousin. I guess she's moved and done all sorts of other crazy stuff so hopefully we will be getting them very soon! :)

Anyways, I really want to tell the story of our wedding day. It was quite an adventure and it will definitely be a story that we could tell over and over again. I wish Brittany (my cousin aka photographer extraordinaire) would have been there during the drama to capture all of it. She was already at lunch with all of my other family who were waiting for us while we did the temple thing.

So it started out as a typical wedding day. Hair, makeup, etc. I am so not a morning person so I opted to get married in the afternoon. It would give me the day to get ready and not feel so rushed. I was actually the first female at my house to be all ready to go. So the limos pick us up (Aaron and his fam and some of my other extended fam were in another limo - we had 3) and we head up to Northwest Houston where the Houston Texas LDS Temple is. It's about a 45 minute drive. So we pull up, get out, and head in to get married.

So back up 6 days now to Saturday, August 9. I went through the temple and received my endowments on this day. It was an amazing day and I love the temple so much! Aaron and I had already gotten our temple recommends set and our marriage license purchased. I put the marriage license in my temple bag so I wouldn't forget it on the wedding day. As we're going through my records, the lady reminds me to bring the marriage license on our wedding day. We've already given her our living ordinance recommends at this point. I say, "well, I have it right here, can I just give it to you right now." She replied that of course I could and that they actually preferred having it earlier. So we watched her put it in our file and left it with them in full confidence. They are a temple after all; marriages are just what they do...

Fast forward back now to August 15. We sit down again, with the same lady, to do a records check. She has our living ordinance recommends, but she asks us for our marriage license. Aaron and I are a little bit confused. We tell her that we gave it to her last weekend. She looks a little bit confused and goes back to the office to look for it. She doesn't come back and doesn't come back and we're starting to get a little bit worried. My parents and Aaron's dad are around and soon it starts to turn into a slight uproar. The temple has lost our marriage license. And the same lady that took our license the weekend before swears she never saw it or anything. So we're stuck. Here we are ready to get married and we're not sure what to do. One worker suggests that we just get sealed, not legally married. To which my mom replied, if that happens, we are no different than the FLDS...lol she would. Finally, it turns out we can go down to a clerk's office nearby and get a duplicate license. As they're explaining what we have to do, they tell us we have to pay $12 to get a duplicate. I am just slightly flabbergasted at this point, and I exclaim, "WE HAVE TO PAY??? even though it's not our fault?" I ultimately apologized for this but can you blame me? So we run down to the clerk's office and purchase a duplicate. It's 3:00, the time we are supposed to be married and we are in a nasty government office not a temple sealing room! We got married around 3:45-4:00 instead. It ultimately, of course, worked out. We are legally married and now everything is just fine.

Again, fast forward to two weeks ago. I receive a package in the mail from my mom with some cute frames and some other mail that I received. Inside one of the envelopes is this:

A blank marriage license and a letter from the Harris County clerk saying that our marriage license hasn't been filled out! Notice the date on the letter: August 14, 2008! The day before we even got married! The license is the original too, it doesn't say duplicate at the top! Turns out the temple just mailed the blank marriage license after we gave it to them on the 9th! So now we know what happened to the lost marriage license! We've received the signed marriage license now too. Anyways, it was a drama filled day and we're so glad it all worked it out fine! Thanks to everyone who waited around to see us get married and was patient with us on our day!

I'll be updating more on our actual life soon. Maybe when I don't have a test to take the next day!