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Ready to tie the knot?
Judge offers Valentine's Day weddings
Probate Judge Monica Martinez will be performing free marriage ceremonies
in the McKinley County Courthouse rotunda on Valentine's Day, Feb 14th.
Last year Martinez performed 24 ceremonies. [Photo by John A. Bowersmith/Independent]
By Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
Staff Writer
GALLUP — For Probate Judge Monica Martinez, her Valentine's
Day weddings are more than just flowers, decorations, and wedding photos.
Yes, she will be performing marriage ceremonies all day long on Tuesday,
Feb. 14 in the rotunda of the new McKinley County Courthouse.
And yes, there will be flowers and decorations, and even wedding photos
for purchase.
And yes, the ceremonies are free.
But to Martinez, the ceremonies have a deeper meaning. For her, they are
all about offering some good things to local couples.
For couples who will never have the money to afford a church wedding,
it's a chance to have a ceremony in a nice setting with a few romantic
frills.
For couples who have been living together, it's a chance to make that
significant commitment to each other.
For couples who already have children, it's a chance to unify their family
bonds.
And for couples who were married only in traditional Native American ceremonies
or who have only a common-law relationship, it's a chance to have their
union legally recognized by the State of New Mexico.
And for Martinez, all those things are very good.
This is the second year that Martinez and staff members from the McKinley
County Courthouse will be offering Valentine's Day wedding ceremonies
in the rotunda. With the ceremonies running from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. with
an hour off for lunch business will most likely be brisk, and the ceremonies
will be fairly brief.
Last Valentine's Day, Martinez performed 23 ceremonies during the day
and one more in the evening at a local restaurant.
According to Martinez, the idea to offer ceremonies in the rotunda belongs
to her clerk, Louis Ledezma. He's also the day's wedding photographer.
He will print off digital wedding photos for a modest fee to cover the
cost of paper and ink.
It's an all-day, joint project, she explained, involving herself, Ledezma,
County Clerk Jacqueline C. Sloan, and staff members of the County Clerk's
office, who keep busy cranking out marriage licenses and sometimes standing
in as witnesses for the couples.
"I love doing this," said Martinez, who has been a probate judge
since 2002. "I'm known as a people person."
Although the county provided some money to purchase permanent silk flower
decorations, Martinez said the courthouse staff members donate the refreshments,
and the wedding arch is borrowed from magistrate court. It's all about
trying to offer couples who probably have limited financial resources
the opportunity to have a nice wedding ceremony, she explained.
According to Martinez, many of the couples tell her, "We've been
meaning to do this, but we hadn't got around to it."
She estimates that about 90 percent of the couples she marries already
have children. "They pretty much all bring their kids," she
said. "They want them to be a part of the ceremony."
Martinez recalled one particularly memorable wedding ceremony that didn't
take place on Valentine's Day. The groom's parents accompanied the couple
to act as their witnesses. During the course of preparing for the ceremony,
Martinez learned that the parents, who had been together for about 30
years, had never married.
"You're bringing him to get married, and you're not married?"
she recalled asking the parents.
One thing led to another. "So we had a double ceremony," added
Martinez.
That kind of impromptu ceremony can take place nowadays, she explained,
because New Mexico abolished the requirement for blood tests. In the past,
couples had to wait for the results of their tests before the state would
allow them to marry.
In addition to the satisfaction Martinez feels about helping couples make
a commitment to each other and their children, as a probate judge, Martinez
also sees the legal importance of marriage.
New Mexico does not recognize the legality of traditional Native American
marriage ceremonies, she explained, nor does it recognize common-law relationships.
When one partner dies, she said, the surviving partner cannot be named
executor of the estate, even if the couple was together for decades.
Most New Mexico residents also don't realize, she added, that it's technically
illegal in New Mexico for unmarried couples to live together, even though
that statute is probably never enforced today.
Based on last year's Valentine's Day wedding ceremony blitz, Martinez
is looking forward to this year's event. "It was really neat to see
the smiles on their faces," she said of last year's couples.
However, there were two smiling faces last year that Martinez wasn't expecting
to see. Martinez received a call, she explained, from her daughter Nicole
before Valentine's Day. Nicole informed her that she and her boyfriend,
Robert Garcia, would be among the couples showing up for a wedding ceremony.
Martinez admits she became very emotional during the phone call and even
more emotional while performing the ceremony for her daughter.
Talking about Nicole and Robert's ceremony reminded Martinez that she
didn't just have a day of marriage ceremonies coming up next week. She
also had a family wedding anniversary she couldn't forget.
Couples interested in having a Valentine's Day wedding ceremony in the
rotunda should call the county clerk's office at (505) 863-6866.
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February 6, 2006
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