Drive-up marriage licenses: KY couples still want to wed despite COVID-19 pandemic
Jeffery Grubb and Melissa Riggs were going to get married Sept. 6 in a lovely ceremony at her parents’ home on several acres outside of Mount Sterling.
But in March, the novel coronavirus hit. The economy crashed.
Grubb, 50, lost his job as a territory manager for Smyth Auto Parts — and with it, his health insurance.
Riggs, 44, a teacher with the Clark County Public Schools, has good insurance. So marrying right now to cover Grubb as her spouse seems more important than sticking to their romantic plan.
“This has kind of moved everything up,” Grubb said Thursday as the couple collected their marriage license from a table set up in the parking garage outside the Fayette County clerk’s office in downtown Lexington.
“Compromise,” Riggs said, laughing. “It’s all about compromise.”
Like most of state and local government in Kentucky, Fayette County Clerk Don Blevins Jr. has closed his physical offices during the pandemic shutdown. But recognizing that some things just can’t wait, Blevins is starting a weekly availability in the Helix Garage for couples who want to tie the knot before normal life resumes.
To obtain marriage licenses, the betrothed must make an appointment during an open time slot and email ahead with their personal information. Every 15 minutes on Thursday morning, two vehicles drove into the garage, parked and disgorged a couple, who dutifully took their place at one of two orange traffic cones, marked with an A or B. Then they were summoned to separate tables.
Blevins and a masked Deputy Clerk Meredith Watson placed their paperwork in front of them. Are the names spelled correctly? OK. Sign here. And here. Congratulations!
As each couple walked away with a freshly printed license, which must be used within 30 days, the clerks wiped the pens and tables with disinfectant.
Twenty-eight couples were scheduled for Thursday. Blevins said he hopes to offer these drive-up marriage licenses once a week while the shutdown continues.
“It’s hard to predict what we’ll do at the peak of the illness,” Blevins said. “I suspect the governor will eventually issue a stay-at-home order. If he does, then obviously we’ll stay at home.”
“It’s a nice thing to be able to give people a source of joy at a time like this,” Blevins continued. “It can be psychologically comforting to say, ‘We’re going ahead with this. We’re going to stick with this date no matter what else is going on in the world right now, even if we can’t do everything we planned.’”
Among the couples outside Blevins’ offices on Thursday, the explanations included a mixture of the romantic — not wanting to wait one more day to unite in wedlock, global pandemic or not — and the practical.
Alberto Rojas, for example, said the K-1 non-immigrant visa for his fiancée, 24-year-old Claudia Piloto, will expire within 90 days of her entering the United States from Cuba for the specific purpose of marrying him. They don’t have time to wait and see how much longer the virus will keep government offices and churches shuttered.
“We’ll just sign everything now,” said Rojas, 23. “Ceremony-wise, we’ll probably postpone it until afterwards.”
Jessica Glines and Mathew Shively, both 28, still want to hold their ceremony now. Their wedding will happen April 22 — Earth Day — regardless of anything else, because that’s an important day to them. They just don’t know where it will happen. Their original pick, the courtyard of the Unitarian Universalist Church, was eliminated when the church closed. Now they’re scouting for locations.
There will be a tiny guest list, as required by government directives against large public gatherings.
“It’s just my mother, and she’s holding up the phone for the guy to marry us,” Glines said. “We are going to Facebook Live and then we are going to Skype.”
“There will be two or three other people, but that’s it,” Shively said. “We weren’t going to do a big ceremony, anyway.”
Ricole Pickles and Jeff Pappalardo were going to fly 7,356 miles to the South Pacific and marry in Fiji. Now, with many airline flights canceled and virus-wary people generally not eager to spend hours sealed inside an aluminum tube with their fellow passengers at 35,000 feet, they will settle for a simple April 24 wedding at a Lexington park.
Pappalardo’s two sons, ages 22 and 19, will be the sole witnesses.
“We’ll dress up, so it at least looks like a wedding,” Pickles said.
“We’re gonna get a good takeout order to take home. Maybe decorate the house a little bit,” Pappalardo said. “You know, we’re a little limited on options.”
While weddings held during a pandemic are small and often hastily arranged, most of the couples on Thursday said they hope to organize larger formal events later this year to celebrate properly with family and friends.
Grubb and Riggs, for instance, still intend to exchange vows at her parents’ place in Mount Sterling on Sept. 6, even if — legally speaking — they’re already husband and wife by then. As far as they’ll be concerned, in years to come, Sept. 6 will be their anniversary, Riggs said.
Of course, that assumes the virus will be under control and restrictions will lift by September.
“If not,” she said, “there’s always another day.”
This story was originally published April 9, 2020 at 3:10 PM.
