What brought Paul Camper and Xiaoming Gao to their courthouse wedding today began with a chance meeting on a Metro Center train platform not more than three months ago.
"We started talking about things we were mutually interested in, like China," says Camper, who, as a consultant, has worked on Chinese affairs. "It was a very [...]

The wedding party assembles for a few pre-matrimonial snapshots.
"Say Wisconsin!" says one photographer. Everyone smiles. The followup: "Say Lebanese!"
"Taverna!" replies bride Rima Karim.
The geographical references reflect the bride and groom, respectively. Mike Neal, 37, is a native of Fond du Lac, and Karim, 39, grew up locally to a big Middle Eastern family.
This wedding is [...]

The man is dressed to the nines, in a tan suit. The woman looks even better, in a simple white dress and a big smile.
The reporter introduces himself, asks to sit in on their wedding, hear their love story. Says the man, "It's quite a story."
Officiant Toni Gore launches into her script: "This is a [...]

"You brought a camera?" asks officiant Toni Gore.
Neither Andrew McPherson, 26, nor Emily Buehler, 25, have brought a camera today. In fact, they haven't brought rings, either.
"We're trying to keep this on the DL," Buehler tells Gore.
They're not keeping it hidden from angry parents or scorned lovers or anything like that. Rather, Buehler and McPherson [...]

Today, on Sex and the City Paper Day, my colleagues are covering such lascivious themes as prostitutes, domestic violence, and abortion protesters. Not me—whether due to latent Catholic guilt or other reasons—I am covering love at its pure, untrammeled best: courthouse weddings.
If you chose to wed this morning at the H. Carl Moutrie I District [...]