marriage snafu

In the midst of all the work Californians are doing to preserve the right to marry for all, or to eliminate the right for some, I had my personal marriage set back yesterday.

My relationship is fine, but the paperwork got screwed up. Peleg and I picked up our marriage license on the morning of November 4 and then took it over to the church office of a minister friend of mine. He signed the license for us in his office. A friend of ours joined us to be the required witness. When we got home with the license I noticed that the minister had put the wrong date on the form. He had written 8/4/2008 instead of 9/4/2008. While I worried what to do Peleg simply took a pen and wrote a 9 over the 8. It didn't look great but it seemed pretty clear what we were trying to do. So I mailed it off.

Yesterday (after waiting more than a month) we got an envelope back from the Registrar-Recorder County Clerk telling us that they were unable to process marriage licenses that had been altered in any way. I had to go back to the minister's office (fortunately that wasn't too difficult in my case) and have him sign an affidavit and then mail that back with an additional $30 check.

You can understand that with the November 4 election looming I'm anxious to get this all accomplished and official as soon as possible.