By Katherine Makepeace – 2014
Love was the last thing I expected to witness as I walked through the cold, vacuous marble halls of the courthouse, expecting instead to interview the magistrate about local crime in Murphy.
A young couple approached us, “Hey girls, would you be witnesses for our wedding?” Shrill with excitement, we followed them to the magistrate’s office where he performed the marriage; his desk was the altar, littered with rose petal paperwork. Leaning against the wall, I accidentally bumped the light switch and the room went dark for just a moment.
We were over-enthusiastic about the wedding. We asked how they met, expecting a romantic or quirky story. Their response: “we’ve known each other a while and been friends.” The couple is from West Virginia and the bride (like many Murphy visitors) has Cherokee family roots in the area. Also, unlike in West Virginia, North Carolina does not require a waiting period for a marriage to process.
As they were on their way out, we were shown a glimmer of their quiet and reserved relationship: matching tattoos, with each other’s names wrapped around their ring fingers.