We had no idea, but this...was quite the process. For a few reasons. Let me enumerate:
1. I don't know if this is true everywhere, but in Mesa, the Maricopa county clerk's office was absurdly hard to find. That or Tim and I are just directionally challenged. But given a choice, I would prefer the former.
2. The security to get in the building is like unto that of an airport. You know - x-ray machines, security wands - the works. [Just a little tip: when they are about to scan you with the wand and say, "Put your arms up," they don't mean straight up. And when they tell you to turn around, they probably don't mean the full 360 degrees. And if you do either of those things, you might get called a "troublemaker." Just hypothetically speaking, of course.]
3. After you finally get through all the security, you get sent back to a little office where you fill out some paperwork. Strangely, this is one of the parts where they don't make it difficult to get your license. They only ask for the very basics: name, social security number, and address. The "quite the process" part came in afterward:
Clerk: Raise your right hands.
Me: ....Really?
Clerk: *raises eyebrows* Yes.
Tim: *tries not to laugh*
Me: Oh, uh, ok.
Clerk: Do you swear that all of the information you have given me is true and correct?
To be honest, I'm still not sure if she was just joking. But either way, we still raised our right hands and made it look darned official. And somehow, she knew we were LDS. I'm still not sure about that part either. [Probably because we were young. And smiley and kinda hyper. #itwasearlyinthemorningok?]
What the official!
p.s. This post is mostly dedicated to Jeff and Emma Jo Yeager, whose marriage-license-picture inspired the above marriage-license-picture. And without the above marriage-license-picture, I probably wouldn't have written this post. And you would have never heard the marriage-license-picture story. And we all know that would have been a great misfortune. Because who doesn't love a good marriage-license-picture story?
