Judge Roy Bean's

    Bruce and I are going to St. Louis for a few days to celebrate our sixth wedding anniversary on December 30. I have wanted to write about this again because it’s a very funny story worth repeating. Here is the very first installment.

   We got married in Eureka Springs, AR at Judge Roy Bean's Old Time Photos and Weddings. Eureka Springs is a quaint mountain town, filled with beautiful wedding chapels, kind of the Vegas of the Ozarks. We didn't plan, I was scared Bruce would back out, so we went to the first place we saw. We could have chosen a costume, but after looking around, decided against that as there were no telling who had had them on. We were taken into the "wedding parlor", a room decorated with silk flowers and old furniture. Bruce said it looked like a funeral parlor. There were some awful silk bouquets on a table for the bride to hold. Again, I said no thanks.
   We waited several minutes for the "preacher" to return. The preacher was the only person there; she also was the photographer & sales clerk. Anyway, she came back into the parlor with a black preachers robe on, but not zipped up and with a big camera dangling from her neck. (She looked like a hillbilly from the hills in a movie) She had on the dirtiest old pair of tennis shoes, which Bruce and I both stared at through the whole 5-minute ceremony. I suppose it was legal, I asked what church she was affiliated with... Now, get this, she was licensed by the State of Arkansas and ordained via mail order that her boss arranged for his employees.

   The part at the courthouse getting the license was even funnier, but long. This blog post will be continued.