 "On one occasion I said 'Do
you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?' The groom hesitated,
then finally said 'I'm sorry Judge. I can't go through with this', then
walked out the door."
Steve Mortillaro, retired Justice of the Peace in Metairie but still an
active wedding officiant, had seen this happen in the movies and laughed
about it in jokes, but now it was actually happening in front of his eyes,
and he couldn't believe it.
At first the bride stood there in disbelief, then she ran into the parking
lot after the groom. After a squabble, the groom jumped into his car and
sped off in a huff. leaving his bride in the dust. But after a drive around
the block the groom returned, and they rejoined the open-mouthed Judge Mortillaro
in his Wedding Chapel and were married.
"I don't know how that one turned out," he says. "I've never
seen them since."
All in a day's work for a Justice of the Peace, whose duties and privileges
in office include marrying couples who choose a civil ceremony. Each wedding
is unique. No two are ever alike and many of them are quite different.
Tell us, Judge Mortillaro, has anyone actually said no and stuck to it?
The Judge laughs. You get the feeling he's seen it all. "I've been
called at my home the day after a given wedding, with the caller asking
if there was a way I could 'disappear' the license. They ask if the license
could be torn up because they really didn't mean to do it, and want to know
what I can do to make it 'not happen'.
"But once they're here, I've never had them not go through with it,"
says Mortillaro smiling.
Mortillaro sincerely enjoys his role as Cupid, joining two people in love
as husband and wife. "I've had a lot of great experiences in marrying
people," he says. "It's a great personal feeling, a great satisfaction.
It's a joy when you're out in public and people see you and say 'you married
us', or 'here's our baby that we've had since we've seen you last', and
I feel somewhat responsible for what's taken place. I get much pleasure
out of it ... never had a bad one. I've enjoyed every wedding I've ever
done because I work with the people, to assure that when they leave I've
done everything I can on a personal level to help them start their new life
together.
Every marriage ceremony Mortillaro performs is unique, individual, and personal
to the couple. "Part of the ceremony is from the text of the Bible,
relative to love and the relationship of a man and a woman, and a lot of
the ceremony is right from the heart. Every wedding I do is as if it's the
first wedding I've ever done, because I put the whole of myself into the
wedding. When the wedding begins it's as though there is nothing else in
the whole wide world but those two people in front of me who are very much
in love, giving themselves to one another," he says.
Performing marriages is not a job to Mortillaro, but a labor of love. With
a sincere concern for the interests of couples seeking marriage, Mortillaro
was instrumental in the passage of a law which allows Justices of the Peace
in Louisiana, in addition to District Judges, to waive the 72-hour waiting
period between issuance of the marriage license and the actual ceremony,
for good cause. A waiver would not be considered, he says, for persons deemed
unworthy, or if the parties were intoxicated, or if they were trying to
do something that was not legal. "We've never run across those situations
here. I don't know that anybody has found there not to be good cause at
any time it's requested. We've found the waiver saves time for people who
wanted to get married on the spot from having to go to a District Judge
across the river in Gretna to sign it.
Incidentally, according to Mortillaro, a waiver of the 72-hour waiting period
can be signed by a Judge or Justice of the Peace anywhere in Louisiana for
either a legal or religious ceremony, regardless of who performs the ceremony.
Another law Mortillaro helped to update dealt with the wedding witnesses.
Where, in the past, Louisiana state law required at least three witnesses
for the performance of a wedding ceremony, now only two witnesses are necessary,
whether the marriage is performed by clergy or a judge anywhere in the state.
Witnesses must be a minimum age of 14, and can be either male or female.
Mortillaro advises any couple planning to get married to reserve their date
as far in advance as possible, especially if the date falls during a holiday
time. With some dates being reserved as far as a year in advance, you can't
book your date too early, he says.
Regarding a possible change in the couple's plans, Mortillaro says "If,
for some reason, the date has to be changed for the wedding, we will be
happy, with reasonable notice, to change the date for them without penalty.
But if the date is cancelled, we would have to use some of the deposit to
cover the expenses we may have had in preparing the paperwork for the wedding,
and maybe missing another wedding date we may have been able to book because
of the fact they've now cancelled. If it's far enough in advance, we have
no problem with making a refund of the deposit."
For many years, Mortillaro married couples in a small wedding chapel in
his office. "We had tailgate receptions in the parking lot where they
brought out the icebox and the beer and sat out in the parking lot on the
back of a pickup truck."
Although based in Metairie, Mortillaro, like other active or retired Justices
of the Peace, can go into any other Louisiana parish and perform a wedding
ceremony with a letter of authorization granting special dispensation from
the Louisiana Supreme Court.
As one would expect, Mortillaro's years of joining couples together in matrimony
have included some interesting situations.
"We've had motorcycle weddings that I've performed in the parking lot
during a driving rain with 40-50 motorcycles in a circle, and I was in the
middle under an umbrella doing the wedding. That one made the newspaper!
"We've done Easter morning wedding ceremony along the bike path on
the rocks on the shore of Lake Pontchartrain.
"We've done outdoor weddings in Lafreniere Park.
"We've done ethnic weddings where everyone dresses for the occasion
... Indian motif, Hawaiian motif, you name it. Some can be very different.
"One really interesting wedding I performed took place in a hospital.
The groom was an older fellow in a wheelchair who was getting ready to undergo
major surgery the next day. He had a young lady he wasn't married to and
they had children. He wanted to legalize it to make sure that she would
get what she was entitled to if he didn't survive the operation, and that
she would be taken care of. So I went up to the room and did the wedding.
The surgeon who was to operate was the best man. The ceremony was held in
his hospital room, and a small reception for family and friends followed.
"Once, I was called to the Jefferson Parish prison in Gretna by an
inmate who wanted to marry a female inmate. The guy said I had married him
once before and he wanted me to marry him again. The results of this one
are still pending," he says.
But every Judge or Justice of the Peace has to have one marriage he has
performed stand out in his mind from all the rest. With a chuckle, Mortillaro
relives his.
"A young couple had come in to be married, and the girl was quite obviously
quite pregnant. The atmosphere was tense and the two families stood apart,
pulling the bride and groom back and forth for conferences. Then, as the
ceremony began, the mother of the bride announced that the ceremony was
off and pulled the bride through the back door. After a heated conversation
in the parking lot, the sobbing bride returned to the Wedding Chapel, and
said she wanted to go through with the wedding. Midway during the ceremony
the mother had another change of heart. She grabbed the bride and locked
her in the bathroom. Another loud discussion went on while the frantic families
tried to talk them into coming out. Finally the bathroom door opened and
the tearful bride returned to the wedding, while the mother stormed out
the back door. The ceremony continued, and the couple was finally married.
"After the ceremony the couple went into the parking lot to get into
their car, which had all their clothing and belongings in it, and were shocked
to discover that the bride's mother had driven off in their car, not to
return.
"Later one of the ladies in the wedding party told me that the bride's
mother had been carrying a loaded gun in her purse the whole time!
"It took me a while to get over that one. That was as close to a shotgun
wedding as I've ever come."
|