by Paul Enos, Outpost Contibutor
"Sure marriage is scary. It's like sky diving &endash; you can practice all you want on the ground but it's not until you jump from ten thousand feet that you'll know if you're fucked or not." Dennis Miller, The Rants
Can you get married and have it annulled in Nevada in a week's time? This was the question my fiancee Darcy Gibson and I set out to answer. We figured it would be fairly easy.
A marriage license can be obtained at the Washoe County Courthouse seven days a week from 8 a.m. to midnight. There is not a waiting period. There are no blood tests. All you need is $35 and a valid I.D.
Darcy and I are not in love, not dating and not going on a honeymoon. This marriage is not for love, money or anything that normal people would get married for. This is just an exercise.
Because this was an exercise, my friends and family had extreme reactions to what we were doing. Sean O'Hare, a friend of mine, was elated.
"You're shooting holes right in the institution of marriage," he said.
My parents, on the other hand, were much less pleased.
"I don't think you realize how serious this is," my mom said.
My dad, who has known Darcy's father for years was much more blunt.
"I may end up hating you for this," my dad said.
I took this in stride because it was a reaction to the hazing he was going to receive from his friends because of the wedding.
The preparation
While preparing for the wedding I learned one lesson &endash; the man's opinion is irrelevant. My opinion was about as important as the plot of a John Holmes movie. Everyone knows this. The bride knows it, the salesmen know it, the minister knows it and by the time you're standing at the alter you'll know it.
There reason you are there is to accept blame when something goes wrong. Waited too long to look at dresses, it's the groom's fault. Can't afford the big diamond ring, that's the groom's fault too. Flowers are wilted...I might be stretching it a bit here, but you get the idea.
Shopping for wedding dresses was the first place where I found out how little my opinion meant. Darcy and I went to Formal's, a bridal shop in Reno's Old Town Mall. Vanessa, a tall, skinny, blonde woman waited on us.
While Darcy tried on dresses, I tried to make small talk with Vanessa. I asked her to shop me the biggest dress they had. She brought me a size 40 toga covered in rhinestones.
That amused me for about a minute, so I asked to see the cheapest dress. She gave me a quick look of disapproval and pointed to the clearance rack. For $79 you could purchase a wedding dress. Now for a dress that you will hopefully only wear once, $79 seemed a little high, until she showed me the $1,200 dress. That does not even include the veil, shoes or garter, which can easily add another $300.
Darcy cam out of the dressing room and Vanessa turned her attention to her.
"When are you getting married," Vanessa asked.
"Two weeks," I said.
Immediately every woman in the store surrounded me.
"Two weeks! What's wrong with you?" they said frantically.
"Isn't that enough time?" I asked.
"That's when one of the customers interjected and said, "I'm getting married in March of '99."
I felt stupid as we left the store, every female in there shaking her head at me with disgust. A man's opinion in a place like that means nothing, but when something goes wrong, the groom is the scapegoat.
Shopping for rings was another trying experience. A ring with a small diamond starts at about $300 and goes up from there. Darcy and I looked at a ring at Macy's that was over $15,000. Again, when shopping for rings, a man's opinion does not mean anything.
This is best illustrated when my best friend, Heather Colbs, and I went into Helzberg Diamonds in Meadowood Mall, under the pretense that we were engaged. First, I went into the store alone, found a male clerk named Charles and explained to him that my future wife spends way too much money. I asked him to show my fiancée rings that were less than $500.
Heather came into the store and started looking at rings. Charles was good at first, showing her only rings that were under $500, trying to talk her out of the big diamonds.
"You can always trade up," Charles told her. But as soon as Heather put a little pressure on the guy, he buckled like a belt.
By the time we got out of there he had shown her a ring for about $12,899 and said that we could work out a payment schedule for a $4,999 multi-diamond ring. I told him that I wanted to save for a nest egg.
"What's a nest egg?" Charles asked.
There are also the cheaper, non-traditional wedding tattoos made famous by Pamela and Tommy Lee. Zack Mueller at Distinct Ink in Carson City said that he could tattoo a wedding band for only $40 but her could not guarantee it.
"We don't guarantee anything below the wrist or ankle because they get too weathered," Mueller said.
Tattoos are becoming more popular for couples, although Mueller has only done six wedding bands in the past year. He does tattoos for couples all of the time.
"They want matching suns, moons and hearts but I do recommend that they do not put each other's names." Mueller said
In the end, Darcy and I bought our rings at Wal-Mart in the gum machines. Instead of stones, the rings have alien heads named Zuetron and Elektora. For both rings it cost us only 50 cents.
We have the rings, Darcy had borrowed a dress, I was going to wear a suit and now it was time to find a chapel. This would have been another bad experience had it not been for Marsha Ketaner at the White Lace and Promises Wedding Chapel.
The chapels that advertise a $35 wedding are lying; $35 will get you a marriage license but then they tack on another $40 to $55 for the ceremony, no music and only 10 to 15 guests. For every guest over 15 people, the Silver Bells Wedding Chapel charges an extra dollar per person.
The White Lace and Promises Wedding Chapel, located by the Truckee River, was the nicest and most reasonable chapel that Darcy and I visited. Marsha Ketaner is a minister and has owned White Lace and Promises for over a year. Everyone licensed in Nevada to perform marriages has to be an ordained minister with a church and a congregation.
Ketaner said that a minister can ordain a member of the congregation and they can use the church they attend as their church to obtain a license. She and her husband John had a chapel in Las Vegas before they moved here. Ketaner said she does not do weddings like the other chapels.
"We do 20 a week, they do 20 a day," she said. "You can get married anywhere in Reno, we give you a wedding."
Ketaner got started in the business when she was upset by the treatment her daughter received at her wedding.
"I'm going to do a wedding the way I want it to be done," Ketaner said.
People get married in chapels for various reasons, Ketaner said.
"A lot of people don't have families, so they come here," she said. Other reasons include insurance, immigration and pregnancy.
"Chapels get a big rush before immigration laws change," Ketaner said.
For our pre-marriage counseling Darcy and I went to Madam Amy, a spiritual psychic. For $20 she read both of our palms. She told Darcy that there would be rumors that I was cheating one her but that she should not believe them. She told us we would be happy in love and to keep our channels of communication open to have a successful marriage.
The ceremony
The wedding was scheduled for 9 a.m. on a Wednesday. Everyone was there by 8:45, except for the bride. Tristan Birdzell, my best man, was consoling me in the groom's room, reassuring me that she would show. Finally at 8:55 she arrived. Apparently, she overslept.
Ketaner placed the wedding party in our proper places and I waited. The music played and the bridesmaid walked down the aisle. Everyone stood. Darcy walked behind her, with Paul Mitchell on her arm giving her away.
When she got to the alter, Ketaner started to talk about love, eternity and wisdom. Right then everything that had been a joke to me before was suddenly serious. Even though I was laughing, I was looking at Darcy thinking "How can I be doing this with someone that I don't love." Thoughts raced in and out of my head and all of them dealt with eternity, love and wisdom. But I was up there and I was not going to back down now. I said "I do" and so did Darcy.
We lit the eternity candle and then it was time to kiss the bride. Darcy and I had discussed at length how we were going to do this. She felt that we should just shake hands but there was no way I was going to say "I do" and not at least get a good kiss out of it. So I grabbed her around her back and pulled her toward me and kissed her. As soon as I was done, she slugged me in the arm. Very romantic.
The marriage certificate was there for us to sign, but in the end Darcy and I decided not to sign.
Why? The best reason I can give is that when I finally do get married I want the words love, honor and eternity to mean something.
Annulments
Although we were not officially married, I did find out that I could have the marriage annulled in few day's time. The Nevada Revised Statute sets the requirements of what has to happen for an annulment.
NRS 125.330 states:
Cause for annulment: want of understanding.
1. When either of the parties to a marriage for want of understanding shall be incapable of assenting thereto, the marriage shall be void from the time its nullity shall be declared by a court of competent authority.
This is the clause that would allow Darcy and I to get an annulment. Jay Hampton, a lawyer with Woodburn and Wedge said that as long as the couple was in agreement, papers could be signed and filed on the same day as the marriage. An annulment in Nevada Costs $145 to file. That does not include lawyers fees, which can amount to a few hundred dollars.
Annulments for past marriages can be obtained from a church. Father John O'Brien, of the Immaculate Conception Church, in Sparks, said a legal annulment would need first be obtained from the court, then, in the eyes of God, he could annul your marriage. The Catholic Church charges a fee for this procedure.
Are Nevada's easy marriage and divorce laws bad for the institution of marriage? Too often we forget that marriage is not about rings and dresses. It is not about cakes and flowers. I will even venture to say that it is not about a covenant before God. It is about two people who make a commitment to each other to be together and be faithful. No more, no less. It is the people involved in that bond who will make a marriage succeed of fail and laws and licenses are not love but only pieces of paper.
copyright 05/7/98 Nevada Outpost
http://www.jour.unr.edu/outpost
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