Married in Michigan

Last week, I departed for Michigan on a mission so secret its nature was known only to me. Last December, Where Las Vegas Editor Jennifer Prosser and I won a two-night stay at the stately Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, via a silent auction held by the Nevada Hospitality & Lodging Association. (An ambulatory jack o’lantern in the form of Gov. Jim Gibbons crashed the party but that’s another story.)

At the foot of the slope upon which the Grand Hotel resides is a fountain and there, a week ago tonight, I knelt and asked Jennifer if she would do me the honor of becoming my wife. Lucky for me, she accepted my proposal and — upon our return to Marquette — wedding preparations were set into motion posthaste.

We both had known that, should this day ever come, our mutual desire was for a civil ceremony. No expensive spectacles for us! On Monday we reported to the Marquette County Clerk, $60 changed hands and 24 hours later the exchange of vows that you see above was conducted on the courthouse lawn.

Although it’s not in the photo (taken by my niece, Sydney Dorow), the Marquette County Courthouse might be familiar to you as the central location of Anatomy of a Murder. Actually, our nuptials were unintentionally Anatomy-themed. The rehearsal dinner was held in a hotel in Big Bay that served as another cinematic setting and the post-nuptial lunch was consumed at Mount Shasta, an eatery near Michigamee. That’s where James Stewart and Duke Ellington joined forces at the keyboard in the movie.

I suppose you could say we did things somewhat backward. For one thing, we had the honeymoon prior to the wedding. Besides, whoever heard of somebody going from Las Vegas to Michigan to get married? I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

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