TG and I went to get our marriage license today. TG did some research, and discovered that instead of waiting half the day in line downtown, there was a local ‘marriage place’ that performed weddings (not ours) and could do the license for you for an additional $30 over the basic cost. Seemed like a no-brainer.<\/p>\n
So off we went to our appointment in a nondescript little building off the 405 freeway, and as we stepped in, we saw what at first struck me as a sad and somewhat tawdry sight: a small room filled with white folding chairs, artificial flowers in an arch over the front of the room, and a karaoke machine in one corner. But the walls were filled with photos, and as I looked closer, I saw that they were vintage wedding photos; based on the clothes and hair, most were from the 40’s and 50’s – many hand-tinted, with some going back to the teens and 20’s. It turns out that the proprietor collects them at flea markets.I was struck by one photo in particular, which looked to be from the mid to late 50’s. The bride and groom were black, with two small black children as ringbearer and flower girl. But the best man – dressed in an identical dinner jacket to the groom – was white, with a slicked-back flat-top and a serious look, eyes directly at the camera, while the groom smiled warmly at his bride.<\/p>\n
There’s a story behind that picture, I thought.<\/p>\n
And a story behind all the rest of them as well, I realized, to which we’ll be adding our own soon enough.<\/p>\n
And then, to make the day perfect in this election year, the man who issued our license was named Nixon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TG and I went to get our marriage license today. TG did some research, and discovered that instead of waiting half the day in line downtown, there was a local ‘marriage place’ that performed weddings (not ours) and could do the license for you for an additional $30 over the basic cost. Seemed like a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}