Wedding Blog

Start from the beginning:
Part 1 - Grand Forks essentially says “No” to our wedding.
Part 2 - Our second choice is less than thrilled with us as well.

Join me now for part 3… the calling of the “B-List” Courthouses.

We thought our venue would be simple. Courthouses are the standard “out” for brides and grooms tired of dealing with wedding stress and hounding by relatives. But I’ve been finding that in the rural northern US, it’s just not that easy.

Mr. MJ and I wanted something close to Grand Forks because it’s close to home, but also because we don’t want our photographer to have to travel far for us. We started out with twelve possible counties. Each county has a county seat, and each county seat has a courthouse.

Grand Forks was out (unless we wanted to get married at the Jail on a Monday). Polk was out because we just don’t want to do it in Polk (personal reasons; plus look at their boring old courthouse). Red Lake was our number 2 choice, but they were not able to confirm or schedule a wedding day unless we hired a private officiant. Pennington was out for the same reason as Red Lake (but also because its courthouse is — how to do I put this gently — pretty much butt-ugly).

Remember, we were told that we could pursue marriage in Red Lake county, but that we’d have to hire an officiant. Red Lake county’s courthouse is gorgeous and has sentimental value too: it’s where Mr. Mary Jane’s parents were married. With that option open, we still decided to check on a few more courthouses. We had 8 courthouses remaining in our chosen region. They are in Walsh, Nelson, Griggs, Steele, Traill, Cass, Marshall (MN) and Norman (MN) counties.

I used Google to find the county seats for each of those counties, and then used Google Maps to create a custom map pinpointing the locations. I used red pins to designate counties that were no longer under consideration. I used Yellow to denote “Maybes”. The map on the left shows the counties we considered, and the map on the right shows the situation I started with (having already called four courthouses a few days ago):

[sources: left (but I edited it a lot in Photoshop); right]

It may be superficial, but we really didn’t want to be wed at an “ugly” courthouse. We were hoping for majestic architecture (or at the very least, quaint charm). We’re having a photographer, after all - it’d be good to have some nice backdrops for shooting! We were prepared to drive to each of the cities and inspect their courthouses in person, but Mr. Mary Jane spent 10 minutes online and found pictures of each of them instead. Saved us hours of travel time! Isn’t the internet great?! Almost all of them fit our aesthetic standards (at least from the outside). (In fact, the only two that were really ug-mo were already colored red on my map!)

Next it was time to stop procrastinating and start calling counties. My goal wasn’t to solidify a place, but I wanted to know what our options were. Here’s how it went.

My first phone call was to…
Cass County Courthouse: Fargo, ND

[source]

Fargo’s a little over an hour from Grand Forks, but it’s also a bigger city and an easy drive on the Interstate. Its pretty courthouse and larger central population made it a top contender in my mind. (I thought that — you know — they might actually umm, do marriage ceremonies in Cass county, given that it’s the most populated county in the state). So I called Cass county first. Cass has slightly more flexible hours than did Grand Forks. We could have a ceremony on a Thursday or Friday between 1:30 and 4:30 PM. (And it’d be at the courthouse, not at the jail, LOL!) Sadly, our chosen date isn’t a Thursday or a Friday… but Thursday wouldn’t be SO bad of a switch if need be. I was told that the marriage they perform lasts 3-5 minutes. Wow. How climactic! Haha. It’s called a solemnization, not a wedding ceremony. (I did a quick Google search for solemnization, but mostly I just found results that pertain to religious ceremonies. Hmmm.) Anyway, the cost for this option is $30. The lady did tell me that for $150, they could marry us after 5 pm at the location of our choosing (but the courthouse is not on the list of options). She suggested “your apartment or a motel”.

Ooookay.

Moving on.

Traill County Courthouse: Hillsboro, ND

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Hillsboro is about 40 minutes from us and like Fargo, it’s just a jaunt down the Interstate. It’s a picturesque place loaded with small town charm (as evidenced by its darling courthouse). The woman I spoke with told me she performs the weddings weekdays at 4:30. I was not sure that I heard correctly. “Which weekdays?” I asked. “Any weekday!” she replied cheerfully. As long as she’s available (”and I usually am!” she added). The cost? $50 plus the cost of the marriage license ($65). She said she generally does a ceremony once every few months, and added that their courtroom is beautiful. She said we could schedule a specific date with her. (Yay!) She was surprised to hear that her small-town courthouse (which is situated between two others serving two of the most populated counties in the state) was the most flexible and offered the most marriage times and days.

I stopped my courthouse calling spree at this point. I had called 6 courthouses over the course of three days, and I finally found a woman who seemed genuinely in to the idea of our wedding. And it’s a beautiful courthouse to boot! As far as I was concerned, we had our winner.

Mr. Mary Jane and I intend to drive down to Hillsboro one of these days and meet the woman I spoke with. We want to solidify our relationship with her, as well as hopefully get a peek in to the room where we’ll be married in a couple of months! If we can, we’ll take pictures (of course!).

And (since the sweet Mr. Mary Jane went to the trouble of finding the pictures), below are the courthouses I did not have to call. I’ll keep them on the list though, just in case this one doesn’t work out.

Marshall County Courthouse: Warren, MN

[source]

The town of Warren is about an hour from Grand Forks, in Minnesota.

Griggs County Courthouse: Cooperstown, ND

[source]

From what I’ve read, the Griggs county courthouse is one of the oldest buildings still in use in North Dakota. Cooperstown is nearly two hours’ drive from Grand Forks.

Norman County Courthouse: Ada, MN

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Ada is a little over an hour away from Grand Forks, and it’s also located in Minnesota. Another cutie pie courthouse, too.

Walsh County Courthouse: Grafton, ND

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Now we’re getting in to “Gee Your Courthouse is Kind of Lame-Looking” territory. But since Grafton’s around 40 minutes from Grand Forks, this location was still worth considering. (Heck, it could be awesome inside, right? Right?)

Nelson County Courthouse: Lakota, ND

[source]

Lakota is about an hour’s drive from Grand Forks and its courthouse isn’t exactly dripping in beautiful architectural detail. It looks a lot like my high school, in fact.

And finally…

Steele County Courthouse: Finley, ND

[source]

Finley is a good hour and a half from us. It kind of looks like an abandoned hospital or something.

I’m really glad that the woman at the Traill county courthouse was willing (and even a little excited!) to marry us on a date we had already chosen. While I’m still a little flabbergasted that I had to call six counties in two states to find a courthouse that regularly offers weddings, I’m really glad I was able to share this experience with all of you readers. For fun, here’s another photo of our winning courthouse!

[source]

Has the difficulty of any one part of wedding planning ever really surprised you? How did it work out in the end?

*A note about my title. It’s not my intention to slander or badmouth my local and regional courthouses. I’m sure that most courthouses care a lot about their missions and purposes. Their employees are doing their jobs. I didn’t speak with anyone who was specifically rude or unwilling to answer my questions. I’m pretty convinced that since the majority of couples select a church or other venue in which to marry, courthouses (at least somewhat rural ones) have seen it necessary to pare down when and under what circumstances weddings are offered.