Wedding Day - June 15, 2007

First, a little background: Devin proposed to me at the Grand Canyon in November of 2005. It was a beautiful snowy day, and we saw a Condor right after I said "yes"! We meant to get married sooner than this - we kept coming up with ideas about when and where, we have friends and family who wanted to play guitar or do photography at our wedding, we even scouted out some places around southern California, like Table Mountain campground where our friends Loren and Michelle got married up by Wrightwood, and parks around Pasadena, like Descanso Gardens, the Arboretum, etc. Timing and planning never came together, though (in other words, the "wedding fairies" never showed up and made it happen for us - ha) and so we just haven't gotten around to it! Occasionally Devin would say something like - "there's something missing - oh yeah, my wedding ring!" or "Did you know we aren't married yet?" We started joking about "common law in-laws" and such, and it would have been easy to just forget we weren't really married yet. We even got a marriage license from LA County Courthouse and had it for the 90 days - a day or two before it expired, we were in the area (Norwalk) getting work done on the RV (new tires, tune up) and thought about just getting married at the courthouse, but when we drove by, the long lines and setting were rather uninspiring, so we went to Jack in the Box for lunch, instead - ha. We decided we would look for a neat little county courthouse somewhere on our trip and get married there, taking our "reception" on the road.

When we found the Ouray County Courthouse, we knew we'd found the place. Built in 1888, this historic wood and brick building is very picturesque in its setting on a quiet side street of Ouray, with the San Juan mountains rising up behind it majestically. Not only that, but in Colorado, you don't need an officiant or even a witness to get married! You can marry yourselves. And it only costs $10 for the license! Not only is it beautiful, it's also easy, AND cheap!! What more could you ask for? Well, to suddenly materialize all our families and friends would be nice, but they will all be happy enough that we finally did it, even if they couldn't be there.

There was no waiting, the clerk was really nice and helpful, we filled out the paperwork, she hand-wrote out the old-fashioned certificate, and we were married! Here's our wedding announcement: my395.com/devinandmaggie/wedding.html

Then we remembered we didn't have rings, so she recommended a jewelry store in town, where we went and picked out simple gold bands for our wedding rings. Then we took the Jeep and drove up Corkscrew Gulch and up to a pass (probably about 12,000 feet) to take "wedding pictures"!

It was a lovely day, the snow still deep in places and clear in others. We crossed a creek, climbed up to the pass and found the roads were blocked by snow the rest of the way, so we took photos and came "home" to the RV as Mr. and Mrs. Riley!

We officially announced our marriage to Devin's dad on Father's Day, as we thought a fitting Father's Day gift would be a new daughter :-) He was ecstatic and so are we!

Click Here for more photos of Corkscrew Gulch Jeep Trail, Ouray, and our wedding day!