Nothing festive

I'm getting married. Yeah, it's quite something. For some people this is the best day of their lives, but we see it - and that may be due to our age and Dutch background - a bit more practical. We don't live together, so for us it's a day of love. A moment when we take care of everything for each other. And arranging that, that's what this blog is about. Because it takes a lot of arranging to get it done.

It started with the online reconnaissance. You can get married for free on Monday morning. By the way, did you know there's quite a queue for that? Nine months at least. When I see this waiting time I think more about the duration of an average pregnancy, but maybe these two are related. This is what they call "easy marriage. This can be on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays. On Thursdays, I think someone is free. Haha. Sorry, I'm freaking out. And this is only possible in the morning. Apparently, cheap, free and easy marriage is also something you do in the morning.

Of course you can 'just' get married. This may be at the price, but then you can get married for example in the old council chamber of the town hall. A lot more atmosphere than at the modern city office in Utrecht Central Station. But apart from the location, of course it's all about love.

And you have to really feel that love for each other when you go into this process. It starts with registering your intended marriage. This is a new word for marriage. Personally, I'm very sorry about that. Marriage sounds a lot cozier, but yeah, all the fun is gone. Because you fill in everything online, it's a process. You enter your details and those of all the witnesses and hopsa: you press send. After a few days, the congregation came on the air. The two of us and all identifications had to come to the city office, to finalize our intended marriage.

Now I'm like, "Just give me a moment. So we planned a day off and together we went romantically towards the city office. There we got a number from a machine in the main hall. We were allowed to go to department C, up the escalator and turn right. We were summoned. All documents were checked again, we paid € 627 (you read it right, getting married isn't cheap) and after five minutes we were outside again. Nothing festive. No congratulations yet. Just a procedure. Is it just me, or is this a missed opportunity? May 15th, they can make it up to you.

 

This blog was written for CustomerFirst and published on 15 April 2020

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