Chapter forty-eight: the court wedding

.... Were we nervous? No way! We filled out paperwork and next met with a marriage agent, who filed all of our info for our marriage certificate. I asked her if this was the best job she'd ever had. She explained that most of the time it was great, and regaled us with stories of couples who — well let's just say they walked in single and they walked out single. I ate it up and filed this under Dream Job Number 21. In a bustling family waiting room, we sent pictures to family who couldn't be there. We chatted with our group until our wedding officiant called our name.

Our officiant happened to be 18 years old. That's not fair, he was a college student — a very youthful-looking one. He was in khaki's and a Hawaiian shirt under his black robe. This was a surprise, sure, but he added the perfect element of quirkiness to Wedding Phase One. When it was time for the ceremony, he did a great job and took his role seriously. He forgot a pen for our witnesses to sign the marriage license but we won't hold that against him — after all it was a Friday. We did get to exchange vows outside! It was a stereotypically gorgeous San Diego day. Our guests wore sunglasses. I wore sandals from Target and held the succulent bouquet that Aunty Eva made me with plants from her garden. My now-husband and I stood under a vine-covered pergola and repeated after college student, with the sounds of birds and airplanes flying overhead. We all took photos and posed for one with our 'Just Married!' commemorative bumper stick that we purchased for $2.

A civil ceremony doesn't sound special. It literally means ordinary. But that day, for me, it was anything but. In planning it wasn't labeled as The Big Day, but it turned out to be just as important, and equally memorable as our 'official' wedding. It was the best long lunch break I've ever taken.

We got home and, at last, tried as usual. Jimi left the room for a while, after patiently waiting for him for an hour, I left to meet him in the living room.

He was on different calls at once "Look Jack sent me the wedding blueprint...

How about the planner, make sure the invitation gets to only 70 people and send me the list of people invited".

"We leave for Nigerian by tomorrow, we gotta meet Mom and Dad" I merely nodded, but I was wondering what going on in his mind. " you know I gotta pay your bride price so I got to meet with my dad about it ". He looked at me and smiled "Look wifey you gonna stay with Ib for some weeks you know until everything is done". He pulled me to himself and hugged me from behind which made me blush. He smiled, then he whispered into my ears "You can me husband now we are a legally married couple ". I blushed so hard that my cheek turned red.