Officially Engaged

Fred and I went to the city hall and officially registered to be married. This is the ondertrouw portion of the process. We'd been there before to apply to get married, after which they checked our documentation for accuracy. The woman who helped us was a rather humorless bull dyke looking woman. Efficient, but not a lot of fun. Today, we had a guy who was sort of the other end of the scale in gender and in humor. No one really comes out and says, "Hey! I'm gay too!" but, you know, that whole gaydar thing. The main difference was that he was pleasant and friendly. (Bully dykes take notice. I like the friendly.) He was not exactly the kind of person I would peg to be a civil servant, but there he was. (Very casual dress code they have there.)

It was mostly just filling out forms in a computer and signing a paper. Interestingly, my parent's names are now in the official data base in Amsterdam. Bet they never thought that would happen. It's just regulation stuff dealing with my birth certificate - and they were involved in that, weren't they?

While our civil servant was off photocopying something, I said, "What is this ondertrouw thing? What does it do?" Fred suggested I ask. I said no. I preferred to do it later, probably online. When the guy returned, he asked if we had any questions. Fred asked what exactly ondertrouw was. The guy explained. It was in Dutch, so this is a paraphrase-translation, but it's pretty simple.

It's an old, pretty outdated thing. Years ago - in the times before computers even - when people said they wanted to get married, a list was made up and posted at the city hall. This gave the towns people the opportunity to say, "Hey, this guy's already married," or "She's not mentally fit to be married." It was up for a couple of weeks and then people were allowed to get married.

These days, it's all done with computers and special effects. I brought a document from NYC stating that I was not married and all of the other stuff is in the official papers that we've turned in. I don't think our names are going to be posted anywhere - although I'd love it if they were. So it really is and outdated process. Fred said that his brothers and sisters usually made a day of it and had a little party. "And I'm just going to work now," he lamented. We did stop and have a celebratory cappuccino and a piece of appelgebak (Dutch apple pie). Then we were off to enjoy or days separately. I'll see him later.

The next step is looking at the boat on which we will be wed and then at some point, we'll meet with the person doing the ceremony. We still need to find a restaurant. And there's the cake issue to deal with. And we need to get our rings polished and engraved. And. And. And.

This card was sent to us by Fred's sister, Ada, and her family. She's good with the cards. This one is really sparkley and campy, which I love. It says, "Al jaren same en nog steeds in love." Roughly translated, that means, "We've been together for years and we're still not sick of each other."
I told Fred so far I only refer to him as my fiancé ironically, but now I can officially say, "The other day my fiancé said..." and "My fiancé gets home about seven." That won't get old, will it? And I can only do it until September 19 when I can start saying, "My husband..."

I'll never refer to him as Fred again.