Weddingbee Blog

Or, an alternate title: Why Mr. Mole and I Almost Got Married Before Our Wedding

Mr. Mole and I moved to Los Angeles in July. He had found a great job with a higher salary and benefits; in fact, that job was the reason we decided to move in the first place. I, on the other hand, would be unemployed. I had a couple of good leads on some jobs — including an available teaching position in the Los Angeles Unified School District — but nothing concrete.

Good news: I ended up finding a job in my field within a week or two of moving. Bad news: the job offered no benefits. I still took it, and I immediately started the process of finding insurance. Going without some form of medical insurance was not an option for Mr. Mole and me. Want to see one very convincing reason why?

Arm X-Ray / Photo by Mr. Mole

That’s Mr. Mole’s shattered arm. He also has a metal rod and screws in his leg. He’s been hit twice while riding his bike in city traffic, and he has experienced pretty hefty medical bills each time. Without insurance, he would have been totally broke (and not just somewhat broken). I am now much more careful about crossing the street.

To avoid venturing into TL;DR territory, I just want to say that finding individual insurance coverage in the United States that is comprehensive and affordable is extremely difficult. At the risk of opening up a political debate, I think that’s both unfortunate and unfair.

Faced with my ever growing frustration, Mr. Mole suggested that we file for a domestic partnership so that I could be covered under his PPO plan. In Illinois, domestic partners must live in the same household, not be related, and have “an emotional and economic interdependence.” In addition, they need to have lived together for at least one year and continue to do so for the duration of the benefits coverage. We soon found out, though, that California’s statute is different. In California, domestic partnerships are restricted to a) same-sex couples or b) opposite-sex couples where one partner is 62 years or over. That was a no-go.

Mr. Mole’s parents then suggested that we just go to the courthouse and get married. They explained that no one would have to know, that we could still do our Vegas wedding. They thought this was such a good idea that they assumed that it’s what we would do! (If you go to the courthouse became replaced with When you go to the courthouse.) Honestly, I felt a little funny about it. How weird would it be to elope to the Beverly Hills Courthouse before we ran off to Vegas? Would any of our guests feel off-put if they didn’t get to witness the “real” (legal) deal? How would saying vows to Mr. Mole feel if I had already done so months before?

My internal debate was silenced when I ended up finding some reasonable emergency medical insurance coverage. Mr. Mole and I decided to wait to get married until January, although there were plenty of good reasons why we should have just gone to the courthouse in September.

Have you ever thought about getting legally married before your ceremony? What do you think of the idea of having a “legal” wedding before the “actual” wedding?