For the past week we both checked to see what decision was going to be made, so this morning when Cleve saw the update on Facebook he ran upstairs to tell me. We had not really thought a lot about it, we have been together for four years and have lived together for three and a half. When Cleve heard that Rutherford County was issuing marriage licenses we discussed it and decided to go get the license. We were planning to have another friend perform the wedding itself later.
We kept getting conflicting reports on Facebook as to whether Rutherford County was actually doing the licenses so when we got there we were apprehensive and a bit scared. The last thing we wanted was any drama. As we got to the door we saw this cute lady sitting on a bench. She asked if we were there for a wedding license and we told her yes. It ended up being Stacey Hamilton, who'd volunteered her time today to officiate any marriage ceremonies. She told us that if we wanted to get married she would be happy to perform the ceremony and that we would be the first in Rutherford County.
Neither of us were dressed for actually getting married but we could not let history pass us by. The gentleman at the clerk’s office was super friendly and after we applied and paid the fee we stepped outside with Stacey, her wife and a reporter and photographer from the Tennessean. Photos were done and we went and had dinner with my mom.
Cleve and I have been waiting for a while for this. We got engaged back in December and really wanted to make it official. We recently watched a documentary called "Limited Partnership" on PBS, the story of Richard Adams and Tony Sullivan, and it really touched us. We were more determined after watching that show to get married. Although we are now legally married we do plan on an actual ceremony next year and we are super excited about planning that.
Getting married is going to help us greatly. Cleve’s job covers me under his health insurance but charges him an imputed income increase that ends up lowering the amount of his pay. With us getting legally married now we can change that and Cleve can get back to normal pay.
We love each other very much and can’t wait to spend the next 50+ years together.