Surfacing

So, there I went disappearin’ again. Sometimes, I don’t update often because I haven’t got anything to say. Other times, not so much. The longer I let things go, the more I feel like I have to write a book to catch up, which triggers my avoidant tendancies. So I’m not gonna write about the family reunion trip way back in July, or going up to the North Georgia Celtic Festival on August 1. Those links have pictures go, so that’s worth a few thousand words.

August 6th is the day most of you want to hear about. That’s the day that kitanzi and I went down to the Fulton County courthouse to get married, with maedbh7 and telynor along to witness the affair.

The ceremony itself was a bit surreal. We wanted this to be as low-key as possible, in order to avoid the various headaches that proper weddings would entail, but even so, I was bemused at the process. We arrived downtown at a bit after noon, and well before the 2:30pm start time, so we wandered down into Underground Atlanta for some lunch at Mick’s. Fed and fortified, we made our way over to Pryor Street and up to the second floor. There was almost a problem over my camera, since it could be used as a recording device, which aren’t allowed in the courthouse as a rule, but they let me keep it.

We waited outside the courtroom with a few other couples who had shown up. there were only about 8 folks waiting outside, so at first I thought this was going to be a small and quick affair. But once the doors opened, people kept filing in. And filing in. And filing in. They eventually moved the spectators over to the Jury box as all the benches were full up with folks wanting to get married. Once everyone was seated, the Dour Bailiff and the Court Clerk went over the rules, and then had us all shuffle up to sign the register. kitanzi and I were couple 25, and somewhere in the middle, so there must have been 40-50 couples there.

Once we were all resituated, the judge came out and said a few words. At first, I was a bit alarmed that the couples themselves were going to be asked to say some words of their own, but thankfully, that wasn’t the case, or we might still be there. It still took a while, but kept ourselves entertained, between people watching, making faces at maedbh7 and telynor over in the jury box, and idle conversation. (Amusement for the polyfolk reading: While waiting to be called up, Kit turns to me and says, “So, are you and X ever going to have that date you keep getting put off?” “Dunno, depends on her schedule, doesn’t it?”)

At last, it was our turn. Being a civil ceremony, the vows were nice and simple: Do you, person1, take person2 to be your lawfully wedded husband|wife? I answered “Without hesitation”, and she said “absolutely”, and we went back to sit down. Once everyone had gone through this, rings were exchanged (though I still don’t have one…hard to find them in my size “off the rack”, and we can’t budget permenant custom rings until after Worldcon, but the ring we found for Kit looks wonderful on her finger.

And so we walked out into the Atlanta sun as husband and wife.

We had a thought to walk over to the Westin Peachtree for a drink in the skylounge, but telynor didn’t want to walk that far, so we headed instead up to Sandy Springs to browse about the Phoenix and Dragon bookstore, and then back up to the apartment briefly before heading out to dinner at Ichiban for habachi and sushi with maedbh7, telynor, tarkrai and his kids. T. and the kids were passing through town on the way back to Michigan from Florida, and unfortunately had to spend far more time here than they intended, due to some car troubles. But it was nice to see them the brief period that we did.

So there you have it, the tale of kitanzi and autographedcat and how they went and got themselves married on a Friday afternoon. Here’s some pictures. Y’all enjoy.