This is the blog of a Norwegian (Marianne, aka 'M') who moved to Australia in 2007 to be with Roger (aka R) and feels lucky to have escaped a comparatively communistic country with ridiculous weather!

We got married on June 9th, but that was in Seattle, so that was early morning on the 10th here in Brisbane, so we have decided that we will celebrate our anniversary on the 10th each year. 

We got married kind of on impulse. R said to me a few days before we left for Seattle, "What if we get married over there?"

So I looked into it and found that it's one of the easiest places to get married, so then we figured why not. It might be fun, and it's a souvenir of us and of Seattle. So when we got there we went and applied for a marriage licence, which is very simple, all you do is fill out your name and address and they give you a piece of paper that gives you permission to get married.

A couple of days later, on Monday when R's parents arrived, we went out to dinner and announced to them that we would get married on Wednesday the 9th (2 days later) and we wanted them to be our witnesses. They were of course pleased.

So on Wednesday we all walked down to the courthouse, the judge read his little thingy about the importance of respect etc when married, then asked us the routine questions and we of course said yes and he declared us husband and wife. (I was very pleased that he didn't say "man and wife" which I have heard a few times on tv). R and I shook hands on it, after I told the judge that's what we do in Norway, but he then exclaimed "boring!" so we kissed as well, so we double sealed the deal:)

We then signed some papers and off we went.

It was all very casual, R and I wore jeans and t-shirts and we didn't make a big deal out of it, which is how we both wanted it. I felt very self conscious getting married in front of 3 people, and I could never have done it in front of a whole crowd, and R said later he felt the same way.

To celebrate we went up the Space Needle in the evening where R's parents bought us dinner.

A couple of days later we decided we wanted wedding rings, so we went and bought some. So there was nothing really traditional about the process, but that suits us just fine.

(click for bigger version)