On Friday, May 29th, the morning before our wedding, Susan and I went to the courthouse in Pontiac, Michigan. The previous Friday I’d graduated college and the Friday before that, I’d had surgery on both knees. Needless to say, that whole period of time was more than a little interesting.

But when we got to the clerk’s office, a very nice woman told us that we couldn’t pick up our marriage license there—you know, in the county where we were going to be married. We had to get the license in the county where we’d had our blood tests. (For the youngsters: You used to have to get a blood test to obtain a marriage license. Yeah, that was actually a thing.)

Anyway, the clerk’s news was distressing, primarily because Susan and I went to college in Lansing, Michigan—which was where we got our blood tests a month or so prior. The problem was that Lansing was halfway across the state.

How was I supposed to know? This was before the Internet. You couldn’t just find that information on your iPhone. Okay, fine, and I was 22 and not especially used to planning ahead.

The other wrinkle the clerk threw into the mix: We needed to have our birth certificates with us. “Why is that a problem?” you ask.

Because my birth certificate was at my parents’ house in Grand Rapids—which is all the way on the other side of the state. We had a wedding rehearsal at 6:00. It would have been impossible for me to drive to Grand Rapids, pick up my birth certificate, drive to Lansing to pick up our marriage license, and then get back in time for the rehearsal in Detroit.

Additionally, when we called the judge’s office in Lansing, the clerk told us that we had to be there by 3:00 because the judge was leaving early to head to his lake house for the weekend.

What to do?

I called my mom and told her our situation. Luckily, my parents and my sister and brother were coming to Detroit that afternoon for the rehearsal. So, I asked them to bring my birth certificate and meet us at the college in Lansing. They could stop and pick up my dad and my brother’s tuxes at the mall while Susan and I went to see the judge about a getting our marriage license (the tux store in Grand Rapids moved the order to a tux store in Lansing—which, thank goodness). A lot more complicated than I’d planned—okay, fine, I’ll take the rap for the not good “planning-thing”—but still theoretically doable.

When Susan and I got to the college we sat and waited for my family to show up. Finally, about 2:30, my folks limped into the parking lot. My dad’s car was overheating. (It was a record hot weekend in Michigan for late May—up in the 90s.) Well, they weren’t going to be able to drive my dad’s car; that was clear.

I said, “Well hop in! We’ll take you to the mall and you can get the tuxes while we go see the judge. So, my mom, dad, sister, brother, Susan, and I crammed into my un-air-conditioned 4-cylinder 1981 Ford Escort 2-door and I sped off to the mall. I say “sped,” by which I mean “labored pitifully.”

After dropping off the family at the mall, several hundred pounds lighter, Susan and I “tore off” across town to find the judge, by which I mean drove “noticeably faster.”

We got to judge’s office at 2:57—just under the wire. After we told her we were there to pick up our marriage license, the clerk said, “I’m sorry, the judge has already left for the lake for the weekend. You’ll have to come back on Monday”

We turned white, our mouths hanging open. “But he wasn’t supposed to leave until 3:00!”

The clerk must have taken pity on us because she said, “What’s your name?”

We told her and she said, “Oh, okay! Yeah, the judge left early but he went ahead and signed your marriage license.”

Finally, one thing went right.

We shouldn’t have gotten cocky about it, though. When we drove back to the mall to pick up my family, my mom met us outside the tux shop and said, “They didn’t get the order transferred, and they might not have tuxes to fit in stock.”

I just rolled my eyes.