Okay, this may seem to be misplaced a bit, since, when we got married, I had not yet started my research even into computer viruses and malware, let alone the broader field of information security as a whole.
When Gloria and I got married, it was still possible to have a "Church" wedding, without the government being involved until after the fact. At that time, the church could simply publish the banns (which basically just meant announcing the fact of the upcoming wedding) three times, over a period of a month, before the wedding took place. Then, *after* the wedding took place, the church would inform the department of vital statistics that the couple had gotten married, with date, time, witnesses, and other necessary details.
Gloria and I, being staunch and long time church people, decided to have a Church wedding. And the Church got into the process of reading the banns.
But Gloria, as mentioned elsewhere, had been a wedding hostess. She was quite well aware of all of the possible problems that could occur during a wedding, and *particularly* the ones that would prevent a wedding from taking place. She suggested to me that we get a marriage license anyway. I thought that was a reasonable idea, and went and got one. We didn't tell anybody about it.
The church read the banns for the first time. And, a week or so later, they read the banns for the second time. Reading of the banns, as mentioned, simply means that you announce the upcoming wedding during a regular worship service. (The term "banns" probably simply refers to the fact that the announcement includes the "if anyone knows any just cause why these two should not" et cetera.)
And then came the last Sunday before our wedding. So this was the last chance to read the banns for a third time. They didn't read the banns at the morning service. But, this church had an evening service as well. So we dutifully went along to the evening service, whereupon they didn't read the banns then either.
So, once the service was over, we mentioned, to the church administrator, that they had not read our banns for the third time. That they had read the banns twice, in previous services, but they hadn't read them the third time.
This created some consternation. As mentioned elsewhere, our wedding was a big wedding. It was a big event in our denomination. As a matter of fact, it was a bit of a an event even beyond our denomination. So it was going to be pretty embarrassing, if announcements had to be made, and all kinds of arrangements had to be rearranged, if we could not be married on the date that had been, quite widely, announced.
All kinds of ideas were thrown around. There was even talk of pretending that the regular Wednesday night prayer meeting be designated as a worship service, somehow. All kinds of ideas were raised, and then shot down, as unworkable.
I must admit that Gloria and I let all of this go on for possibly longer than we needed to before we admitted the fact that, anticipating just such a problem, we had, in fact, previously procured a valid marriage license.
Introduction and ToC: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/10/mgg-introduction.html
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