Twenty-nine years ago this afternoon, Joan and I were married at the Old Courthouse Museum in Sioux Falls, in what I believe still holds the record for the shortest wedding ceremony in history…or at least South Dakota.
No, really.
Due to the fact we had recently purchased a home, we opted for a “planned elopement” to save funds for the work we wanted to do on our house, in lieu of spending it on a ceremony. That strategy led us to an upstairs room in the old museum in downtown Sioux Falls, with my brother and Joan’s friend — who were our witnesses — a photographer, and my friend Tom, an attorney who arranged to have a judge there to perform the ceremony.
And Judge Hegge.
A bit of backstory is apropos here. Our families knew of and blessed our “planned elopement” for the most part. Joan’s mom still set up a reception for us a couple weeks later, the same day that Huron won the state football title. As our families knew our plans ahead of time, when Joan’s brother-in-law passed away the day before our scheduled elopement after a lengthy illness, we were told us to not change our plans.
So, we gathered. When we arrived at the old courthouse, Tom was pacing impatiently. It seemed that while arrangements had been made weeks before to have the judge officiate, he was, at that same time, presiding over a trial, which had just come to a close and had been handed off to the jury the day before.
Tom urged us to please hurry, as the judge had just heard that his jury had reached a verdict.
And the judge — for some reason — was way more interested in his jury than in performing a marriage ceremony for some couple he didn’t know, at a museum.
Or something along those lines.
We zipped up the stairs, quickly ‘assumed the position’ and hadn’t really caught our breath before the judge was off and running.
Nobody put a stopwatch on it, but I can’t imagine that the entire ceremony took more than three minutes.
I have the suspicion that the last marriage the judge had done involved a groom named Steve. I suspect that because he called me Steve three times. Joan corrected him once, I did the second time and by the time the third misnomer came around everyone in the room was giggling so hard - except Judge Hegge, who was simply plowing forward - we just let it slide.
“Do you, Steve, take this woman….?”
“I CURT, do.”
The third time was when he presented ‘Mr. and Mrs. Steve Stafford,’ which was a perfect way to close the show.
Joan’s maiden name was…is Stafford. Hilarity ensued.
But the judge stayed in character, whipping out his pen to get our signatures on our license and was out the door seconds after the ceremony.
I kept his pen. I have no idea what happened with the trial.
Twenty-nine years and counting, we’ve had this story as our starting point and have a life of more ups than downs and many adventures upon which we can reflect.
Happy Anniversary Joan. The countdown to 30 has officially begun.
