By virtue of the authority vested in me by the State of California, I now pronounce you...

I'm going to be saying those words or something like that at my friends' Dave and Lana's wedding. We went to SF City Hall to take care of the paperwork today. It was quite interesting.

We got to the County Clerk's office and there was a whole lot of people standing around, so we thought a long wait was coming. At the desk, we told them what we were there for and the desk clerk gave us a ticket. A27. Less than 3 seconds later a robotic voice said: 'Now serving A27.'

The second guy somes to help us and he gives me a form to fill out. I fill out my name and the next two lines were for 'Partner 1' and 'Partner 2.' I was kind of confused and turned to Dave for advice. At this point, the clerk realized he gave me the wrong form. Apparently, even though the wedding is going to be at City Hall, they don't perform those kinds of ceremonies anymore. I got the more conventional form where I got to fill in spots for 'Groom' and 'Bride.'

He gave me a packet to look over and said he was going to be asking me some questions later. I kind of ignored him and just waited for him to sign off on the documents. Then while going over the forms, he asked me if I knew what my title was going to be. I guessed Deputy Clerk or something like that. He told me the answer was actually Deputy Marriage Commissioner, just like it said in bold on the front page of the packet and instructions sheet he gave me. I got a 0 out of 1 on his quiz, but still passed. SF City hall has such high standards.

The best part of the process was that I had to take an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States and the State of California against all enemies, foriegn and domestic. All so I could be appointed Deputy Marriage Commissioner for one day in June. So if the bad guys, foreign or domestic, want to try something next month, they better pick a different weekend than Dave and Lana's wedding.
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