Take a long lunch break with your beau during the week to visit your local City Hall.

Head to the City Clerk’s office, which handles marriage licenses and ceremonies. Every City Hall works differently, but in Massachusetts, we had to fill out an application and perform a verbal vow in front of a city rep to attest that our application was being filed in whole truth. We were prepared with a checkbook and cash to handle the small, license application fee.

Then, we picked a date to be married by the City Clerk, or Assistant City Clerk. We picked the latest appointment available on a Friday in August, exactly 1 week before leaving for Ireland. The time was 3:30, which was perfect timing to have photos taken in front of the historic City Hall building and on the City Common, followed by dinner at a well-known, local Irish restaurant. (Gotta keep with the Irish theme, of course!)

We booked the Irish restaurant for 15 adults and 5 children in our immediate families, plus our photographer friend and his wife.

The marriage at City Hall was so beautiful and intimate. We will always celebrate the date of our legal marriage as our official anniversary, but we will also celebrate August 31 as our 2nd anniversary! Hey, the more the merrier!

The fun part will be quizzing my husband about not one — but two — anniversary dates over the course of our long and happy life together 🙂