So we decided to get married on New Year's Day, in honor of our first date. There was another reason too. Back in the early 1980's, there was such a thing as a marriage tax. The U. S. Tax Code is an enormous, incomprehensible accumulation of convoluted laws designed to confuse even the most astute scholar. No one knows exactly what's in the Code or exactly how to interpret any part of it. However, in the early 1980's, married people paid a significantly higher amount of tax than singles on the same amount of income. Even if you were married but filing separately, the tax rate was higher than if you were single. So part of our decision about when to get married had to do with avoiding the marriage tax for another year.
We checked with the Magistrate's Office to be certain there would be a Magistrate available on New Year's Day to perform the ceremony. The answer was yes, but in all likelihood we would have to be married in the jail. Okay, we could live with that. We contacted our friends Frank and Susan Simms, who were now living in Georgia, and asked them to be our witnesses at the wedding. We got our heath certificates from our doctor verifying that neither of us was harboring any communicable diseases. We applied for and were issued a marriage certificate, to be signed upon completion of the ceremony and filed with the Registrar's Office, thereby making the marriage legal.
Frank and Sue came up from Georgia and stayed with us at our house. Tim decided to have a New Year's Eve/Bud and Carla Wedding Party. The price of admission to this party was one bottle of sparkling wine (still known as champagne at the time). We figured we'd go to the party and then sometime after midnight slip off to downtown Greensboro and do the deed. Tim invited thirty or forty of our closest friends, or at least that's how many showed up. We all proceeded to be very merry in ushering in 1983. It was a fantastic party. One of our friends arrived dressed as Father Time and his date was the Baby New Year. She was wearing only a diaper. She was 26 years old and an extremely attractive young woman. She was a huge hit at the party. There was much drinking and various other forms of merrymaking and by midnight most everyone was polluted. Another of our friends appeared to be lost in a haze of his own making, so we tied a helium filled balloon to his belt so we could keep track of him. Midnight came and went. Bud and I decided it was probably not such a good idea to drive to the police station to get married in our current condition, so we postponed the plans for our wedding until after we'd slept off some of the partying. We didn't mind getting married at the jail, but we weren't at all interested in being detained afterward. We gathered up Frank and Sue and we all went back to our house sometime around 2:00 am, planning to catch a few winks and then get up and head down to the jailhouse for the wedding.
We woke up around 9:00ish, got dressed and started to gather up the things we would need for the wedding. Oops! We couldn't seem to find the marriage license. We tore the house apart looking for the license. On Thursday, Bud had been cleaning up around the house in anticipation of Frank and Sue arriving on Friday and he definitely recalled seeing the marriage license. While he was cleaning, as he found papers and such that were not needed, he threw them in the fireplace, which had a roaring fire already going in it. When we couldn't find the marriage license, we had no choice but to assume Bud had accidentally thrown it in the fireplace along with the other stuff. I thought this might have been some kind of subconscious revolt, but he assured me he really did want to get married and if he had thrown the license away it was truly a mistake. Well there was nothing to be done about it. It was Saturday and it was a holiday. No one would be back in the County Clerk's office until Monday, so that was the earliest we could try to get a replacement. We had a quiet but fun weekend with Frank and Sue, but they had to go back to Georgia on Sunday and would not be able to stay to witness the wedding.
On Monday, during lunch from work, Bud and I went to the County Clerk's office to get a replacement license. Well, we were dealing with government workers, so we shouldn't have been surprised at the ensuing chaos. You would have thought no one had ever lost a marriage license before. I know it's probably not common, but there is no way we were the first people in the history of Guilford County to lose a marriage license. It took two clerks and a supervisor 45 minutes to figure out how to go about issuing a replacement. The biggest problem they had was trying to determine what date to put on it. The original license was issued in 1982, but it was now 1983. They finally decided to use the current date. What a bunch of imbeciles! Once we finally got back to work after the debacle at the County Clerk's office, I called to arrange for a Magistrate to perform the ceremony. Since it was now well into the afternoon of January 3rd, no one would be available until January 4th. And, that's how we ended up getting married on the 4th.
We left work around 3:30 pm on Tuesday, January 4, 1983. Tim and his then girlfriend, Vicky Hiatt, were our witnesses. The four of us drove down to the County Municipal Building and went to the Magistrate's office, for a wedding at 4:00 pm. Vicky was studying photography and had a really nice new camera. She was going to take pictures. She and the Magistrate got into a long, involved conversation about cameras and photography and the screwball Magistrate almost forgot why we were there. Finally, he ushered us all into one of the courtrooms and started the ceremony. I came damn near to bursting out in laughter when I looked over at Bud. He was pale and breaking out in a cold sweat. His leg was shaking like he was keeping time at a square dancing ho-down. He did okay with the repeat after me part. But when it came to "will you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife, to ......." (no obey anywhere in the wording for either of us), the wording was so lengthy he forgot how it started and he actually said "I do, I shall, I will ... whatever." Then I really did burst out laughing. Finally the ceremony was over, the paperwork was signed, and we were on our way back to our house, where Bud and Tim were going to cook us a fantastic wedding dinner (better than we could have gotten at any fancy restaurant).
Turns out there were no wedding pictures. Vicky and the Magistrate were so wrapped up in their little conversation about cameras and film and photography that neither of them noticed they had dislodged the film so it didn't advance. Ah well. I can still see it clearly in my mind's eye. Oh, and the original "missing" marriage license? When we went to file the completed and legal one in our important papers, we found the original. Bud had stuck it there so it wouldn't get lost. Is it any wonder I love this guy so much?
We checked with the Magistrate's Office to be certain there would be a Magistrate available on New Year's Day to perform the ceremony. The answer was yes, but in all likelihood we would have to be married in the jail. Okay, we could live with that. We contacted our friends Frank and Susan Simms, who were now living in Georgia, and asked them to be our witnesses at the wedding. We got our heath certificates from our doctor verifying that neither of us was harboring any communicable diseases. We applied for and were issued a marriage certificate, to be signed upon completion of the ceremony and filed with the Registrar's Office, thereby making the marriage legal.
Frank and Sue came up from Georgia and stayed with us at our house. Tim decided to have a New Year's Eve/Bud and Carla Wedding Party. The price of admission to this party was one bottle of sparkling wine (still known as champagne at the time). We figured we'd go to the party and then sometime after midnight slip off to downtown Greensboro and do the deed. Tim invited thirty or forty of our closest friends, or at least that's how many showed up. We all proceeded to be very merry in ushering in 1983. It was a fantastic party. One of our friends arrived dressed as Father Time and his date was the Baby New Year. She was wearing only a diaper. She was 26 years old and an extremely attractive young woman. She was a huge hit at the party. There was much drinking and various other forms of merrymaking and by midnight most everyone was polluted. Another of our friends appeared to be lost in a haze of his own making, so we tied a helium filled balloon to his belt so we could keep track of him. Midnight came and went. Bud and I decided it was probably not such a good idea to drive to the police station to get married in our current condition, so we postponed the plans for our wedding until after we'd slept off some of the partying. We didn't mind getting married at the jail, but we weren't at all interested in being detained afterward. We gathered up Frank and Sue and we all went back to our house sometime around 2:00 am, planning to catch a few winks and then get up and head down to the jailhouse for the wedding.
We woke up around 9:00ish, got dressed and started to gather up the things we would need for the wedding. Oops! We couldn't seem to find the marriage license. We tore the house apart looking for the license. On Thursday, Bud had been cleaning up around the house in anticipation of Frank and Sue arriving on Friday and he definitely recalled seeing the marriage license. While he was cleaning, as he found papers and such that were not needed, he threw them in the fireplace, which had a roaring fire already going in it. When we couldn't find the marriage license, we had no choice but to assume Bud had accidentally thrown it in the fireplace along with the other stuff. I thought this might have been some kind of subconscious revolt, but he assured me he really did want to get married and if he had thrown the license away it was truly a mistake. Well there was nothing to be done about it. It was Saturday and it was a holiday. No one would be back in the County Clerk's office until Monday, so that was the earliest we could try to get a replacement. We had a quiet but fun weekend with Frank and Sue, but they had to go back to Georgia on Sunday and would not be able to stay to witness the wedding.
On Monday, during lunch from work, Bud and I went to the County Clerk's office to get a replacement license. Well, we were dealing with government workers, so we shouldn't have been surprised at the ensuing chaos. You would have thought no one had ever lost a marriage license before. I know it's probably not common, but there is no way we were the first people in the history of Guilford County to lose a marriage license. It took two clerks and a supervisor 45 minutes to figure out how to go about issuing a replacement. The biggest problem they had was trying to determine what date to put on it. The original license was issued in 1982, but it was now 1983. They finally decided to use the current date. What a bunch of imbeciles! Once we finally got back to work after the debacle at the County Clerk's office, I called to arrange for a Magistrate to perform the ceremony. Since it was now well into the afternoon of January 3rd, no one would be available until January 4th. And, that's how we ended up getting married on the 4th.
We left work around 3:30 pm on Tuesday, January 4, 1983. Tim and his then girlfriend, Vicky Hiatt, were our witnesses. The four of us drove down to the County Municipal Building and went to the Magistrate's office, for a wedding at 4:00 pm. Vicky was studying photography and had a really nice new camera. She was going to take pictures. She and the Magistrate got into a long, involved conversation about cameras and photography and the screwball Magistrate almost forgot why we were there. Finally, he ushered us all into one of the courtrooms and started the ceremony. I came damn near to bursting out in laughter when I looked over at Bud. He was pale and breaking out in a cold sweat. His leg was shaking like he was keeping time at a square dancing ho-down. He did okay with the repeat after me part. But when it came to "will you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife, to ......." (no obey anywhere in the wording for either of us), the wording was so lengthy he forgot how it started and he actually said "I do, I shall, I will ... whatever." Then I really did burst out laughing. Finally the ceremony was over, the paperwork was signed, and we were on our way back to our house, where Bud and Tim were going to cook us a fantastic wedding dinner (better than we could have gotten at any fancy restaurant).
Turns out there were no wedding pictures. Vicky and the Magistrate were so wrapped up in their little conversation about cameras and film and photography that neither of them noticed they had dislodged the film so it didn't advance. Ah well. I can still see it clearly in my mind's eye. Oh, and the original "missing" marriage license? When we went to file the completed and legal one in our important papers, we found the original. Bud had stuck it there so it wouldn't get lost. Is it any wonder I love this guy so much?
Aww how sweet! I always "put things in a safe place and then forget where the safe place is. In fact I did that with my socila security card recently and I hope I find it in my spring cleaning!
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