To get to the courthouse wedding chapel, Perea, Gankhuyag and the 10 family members they'd invited had to run a gantlet of security guards, emptying their pockets and sending their purses and wallets through an X-ray machine just inside the court's plate-glass doors. Checking in at the registrar's window, they waited for their names to be called.
"Robert Perea?" asked Bronwen Savage, a smiling wedding officiant in a black judicial robe who would soon ask Perea to kiss his bride in the courthouse chapel -- a small room whose entrance is between an out-of-order water fountain and a bulletin board plastered with posters for victims of elderly abuse. Inside, decorative touches had toned down the chapel's institutional feel. Its doors, walls and lockers were veiled with white chiffon. Its nine chairs were dressed shabby chic with ribboned covers.
"It's not bad for a government office," said Savage, a deputy commissioner of civil marriage for the Beverly Hills courthouse who, every 15 minutes on Thursdays, walks grooms and their wives-to-be through their vows.
In L.A. County, civil wedding ceremonies cost $25 and are conducted at seven locations, all of which require appointments. Though some, such as the Beverly Hills and LAX courthouses, offer ceremonial services only one day a week, others, including the Van Nuys and Norwalk registrar-recorder's offices, offer ceremonial services Monday through Friday. Locations vary widely in vibe and decor.
More money for home
The chapel at the Norwalk Registrar-Recorder's office is sponged with blue paint, its walls dotted with framed posters of wedding rings and a tiered cake. In front of the six wooden pews is an archway ringed with fake flowers. Behind the pews: a door, through which the sounds of footsteps can be heard along with competing conversations and crying babies.
On a recent Friday, the Norwalk office was so mobbed that the parking lot was entirely full, and the line was out the door and down the sidewalk. Standing with cups of soda and pushing strollers, most of the people in line were there to pick up birth, death and marriage certificates, but a smattering were crammed in a small lobby area, waiting to tie the knot.
Among them were Cesilia Bracamontes, in a strappy white dress and black stilettos, and her husband-to-be, Santiago Miranda, in a black suit and skinny tie. Inked, pierced and painted in matching black nail polish, the couple was standing outside with a small cluster of friends waiting to be called in to a chapel they weren't even allowed to see before getting married.
