by Zach Bigalke

Created on: May 04, 2007   Last Updated: May 14, 2007

So Melanie and I finally took the big plunge, tying the knot around nine in the morning in Eugene on May Day 2007. We had been planning this day for months (and subconsciously years)...well, we had been planning a wedding, anyway. The whole matrimony snowball began as a single snowflake back around the turn of the year. Melanie's second cousin, Erica, was going to be throwing a joint bachelor/bachelorette party in Las Vegas the week before their 20 April wedding. Melanie and I, both invited, decided that we would finally formalize our long-standing relationship in a chapel in Sin City. Nothing big...just a quick drive through one of the plethora of chapels and we would be back to partying within the hour.

We bought rings, debated where to go and what to wear, and who should come with us as witnesses of the occasion. Months passed and the seasons changed. Winter gave way to spring and the departing flight inched ever closer. But then disaster struck. Erica was now wholly injured by our long-announced plans to elope in the global wedding capital. Either Melanie had to be a bridesmaid at Erica's wedding or a bride at her own a week earlier. We were a week removed from departure - reservations for the ceremony already made and deposit down - when this caustic piece of news arrived through the receiver of Melanie's phone.

But the proverbial saying that there is a silver lining in every cloud is true. The fair-weather cumulus that was our plans had become a thunderous cumulonimbus. But, resilient as ever, a new itinerary quickly developed which caused the storm front to drift further southward in our minds' recesses. We would willingly postpone our nuptials. After all, we had been together already well over five years by this point; what were two more weeks when you already feel as though you are married to all extents but tax purposes alone? Vegas would be more fun with Erica's friends and long-standing connections with the town and its gaming establishments. And, now we were afforded the ability to plan our wedding around how we wished to see it happen.

We felt liberated. We chose May Day as the date for our day. Melanie picked me up from home the last Thursday in April and we both went to the courthouse. One single-page form and sixty dollars later, we had our marriage license with which we were legally permitted to perform our ceremony. Unable to book a time with a justice of the peace before June, we turned to Melanie's aunt by marriage to serve as our master

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