My friends wanted to see an American wedding. So I took them to the Palm Beach County Courthouse

In 2013 the man formerly known as the Main Squeeze and I had been together for 17 years when developments on the marriage-equality front began to highlight the benefits of the institution and make it more morally acceptable to me. To clarify, in those 17 years we could have gotten married if we had wanted to. It just didn’t seem important, and when other people couldn’t, it also didn’t seem fair.

But things began to change; equity advanced, I began to realize that legal, medical and financial issues can be easier for married people, and then one day I found an adorable hat with a veil that I needed an excuse to wear.

I mentioned these developments to my friend Ronnate and she became interested. She and her husband are from Sri Lanka where he was a journalist, and we had spent a year together in an academic fellowship program during which the 25 members of our class had forged family-like ties. Her husband had never been to an American wedding, she said, and wanted to know what one was like.

Fulfilling a promise: 30-year-old promise to dying friend delivers a window into Asheville's healing beauty

Tiffany Trump: Daughter of former president Donald Trump, picks Mar-a-Lago for Palm Beach wedding

Unique wedding: Palm Beach International Raceway's last day featured a drag strip wedding

Years earlier, my job had included going every evening to the Palm Beach County Courthouse where a dyspeptic clerk with a dour demeanor would turn over to us reporters the civil lawsuits that had been filed that day, and sigh about the annoyances of his job.

Sometimes a couple would burst in just as he was getting ready to lock the doors — in a last minute rush, for whatever reason, to get married. He would read the ceremony briskly across the counter and then, as he pronounced the couple husband and wife, he would beam and smile with satisfaction. I liked him anyway, but what these weddings did to him was magic.

I told Ronnate that, if it happened, it would be a simple courthouse wedding.

I was working in Washington, D.C., then, commuting home on weekends, and she urged me to propose to the main squeeze on my next trip. She had to put in for time off to come to the wedding, so she needed to start planning. She worked for human rights campaigns on Capitol Hill and was good at pushing people to do things they might not otherwise do. So a month after my proposal Ken and I headed to the courthouse.

Ronnate was the wedding photographer and matron of honor. Her husband, Tissa, was best man. My mother gave me away. I got to wear the hat with the veil as well as a blush pink silk dress. Ronnate, my mother and I each carried a rose; Ken and Tissa wore theirs on their lapels. Amid the array of courthouse fashion that on any day ranges from business suits to sweat pants, we drew our share of attention.

We all made it through the metal detectors and into the civil court office where, listless and impatient, visitors who had taken a number waited to be called. The court had a special $100 deal that included saying the vows in a private room instead of over the counter, a decorative copy of the certificate and an 8-by-12 photograph.

The kindly dyspeptic clerk from years earlier wasn’t there; but the on-duty officiant was, like him, rushed, businesslike and grim until — as she pronounced us married — her face melted into a gentle smile.

It was everything I had hoped. As it happened, a reporter who knew me in the old civil-suit-checking days now worked for the court, and when she posted the photo on the office’s Facebook page, she shared it with mutual friends, saying it was the first time she had ever posted a picture there of someone she knew. Word spread that way, so we didn’t even have to make an announcement.

A year later another friend from our fellowship program got married and invited our whole class up to New York for the reception — which, hosted in a historic mansion on a hill overlooking the East River that he had booked for the occasion, featured hours of speeches and stories of family traditions, songs and hors d’oeuvres.

We went to dinner a few nights later with Ronnate and Tissa.

“Yours,” Tissa said, “was a very minimalist wedding.”

Ceremonies at the Palm Beach County Courthouse were among those to come to a pandemic-driven halt — for about six months. After precautions, including Plexiglas countertop dividers, were installed, weddings resumed at the front counters, by appointment. Earlier this year, the office re-opened its wedding ceremony rooms. To plan yours, go to mypalmbeachclerk.com

Antigone Barton is a journalist at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach her at avbarton@gannett.com. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Palm Beach County Courthouse provides a romantic wedding venue