No Charlotte courthouse wedding for Valentine’s

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CHARLOTTE (AP) — The weather may be an excuse plenty of people use to explain why they don’t have a Valentine’s Day gift this year.

But the weather has caused even bigger problems for those who were hoping for a Valentine’s Day wedding at the Mecklenburg County Courthouse in Charlotte.

The snow and ice have prompted officials to cancel the usual Friday afternoon offerings of weddings before a magistrate at the courthouse, The Charlotte Observer reported.

Officials say about 60 couples usually get married on Valentine’s Day at the courthouse when Feb. 14 falls on a Monday or Friday, when the weddings are offered.

The next chance for such a wedding will not come until 2020.

Magistrate Angela Ranson performs many of the weddings and says she’s seen just about everything in 30 years in office.

Ransom said she once married a couple just before the husband’s surgery to become a woman. The couple wore matching wedding gowns.

Some people come with gown, veil, tux and flowers, and others come in matching hoodies.

The ceremonies are brief. Ransom said she can read the ceremony that takes just 50 seconds if there are rings to exchange, and just 43 seconds without rings.

She used to let couples repeat after her, but too many people stumbled over the words.

“Somebody always said ‘awful wedded wife,’ ” she says.