As the Marriage Commissioner for Christina Lake since 2015, Brenda Augé has overseen more than 100 couples tying the knot in the community and a few in Grand Forks.
But the time has come to hang up her trusty basket of paperwork, pens, table doily, painted stones and special green dress she kept on-hand for weddings as a new marriage commissioner steps in.
She explained a Marriage Commissioner’s time allotment is five years, with an automatic five-year extension if a person doesn’t say they no longer want to do it.
“I got my letter and it said there’s a lot of people waiting in the wings to do the job,” she said. “It’s been an interesting experience and over the 10 years I’ve done 124 marriages, with most of them at the lake and outdoors.”
Of those marriages, 74 were first-time marriages and 50 were with someone who was getting married again. In terms of age, about half of the couples were young, in their 20’s and 30’s, with the other half middle-aged or senior. The youngest person she married was 20, and the oldest was 79.
The sizes of weddings have also varied, from just four people, to a little more than 100.
Some of those marriages have been in Grand Forks due to the Marriage Commissioner in the city being unavailable for a ceremony for several reasons, including overlap or they are away.
With so many weddings, there are of course a lot of highlights, including:
- One longtime couple who had their daughters witness their wedding.
- A couple from Calgary at the Texas Creek campground asking two fellow campers to witness their wedding.
- A couple with historical ties to the lake who tried for nearly a decade to have their families come to their wedding decided they were just going to do it, called Augé and asked for her to provide witnesses, which she had two of her neighbours come with her.
- A couple from England attending a friend’s wedding deciding they wanted to get married. They went to the Service B.C. office, presented government identification, obtained a marriage certificate, got a dress from the thrift store, reception favours from the dollar store and had their wedding the next day in front of their rented cabin. They both jumped in the water after.
- A wedding on a boat with a dozen people with a small BBQ reception back on land. Everyone was barefoot except herself.
She also had four weddings in the winter on the public beach.
It’s fairly easy to get a marriage certificate, Augé said, with a person only needing government-issued identification from their home province, state or country, $100, a $50 fee for the marriage commissioner and two witnesses.
Back in 2015, she got the idea of taking up the marriage commissioner position after reading the community was looking for a new one in its printed newsletter. She applied and interviewed at Service B.C., which included reading a sample ceremony. As a retired elementary school teacher, she said she was sure she had the skills to be an effective communicator and clear speaker.
“They wanted someone who would be in the community and have flexible timing and were generally there in the summers,” she said. “We had moved to Christina Lake, so we would be there in the summers. I thought at the time I would be held in good stead because as a teacher, I could print legibly and I could speak clearly and command attention.”
She got the position and not long after requests for marriages started. In her first year, she oversaw two, with that number slowly increasing.
To clear up some confusion, she says she’s never been an official wedding planner, nor a marriage counsellor as both of those require their own specialized training and licensing. However, as she has to oversee the legalese of the ceremony, she is involved in some of the planning aspects for vows and signing peppers required for vital statistics, as well as talking with the couple on how their ceremony will play out. She also makes sure the marriage papers are filed with Vital Statistics.
The province instituted marriage commissioners in the 1980s through Vital Statistics. At the time, it was to give people the option of a religious ceremony, in a government building or just providing a marriage commissioner. That evolved into allotting marriage commissioners to a region based on the number of marriages that happened there.
Christina Lake has a high number, Augé explained, mainly due to the natural beauty of the area, plus it’s a popular summer vacation destination. To put that in perspective, Grand Forks used to have two, now there’s one. Larger centres like Kelowna often have around 20.
“I need to determine some things like how they want to say their vows, what the colours will be, theme, things like that so I can be ready,” she said. For colours and theme, it’s so I can blend in to the scene if I need to. There is a basic vows template they can use, or they can make their own, but I fill in their names and dates.”
The vows have some legal requirements, she said, which include repeating certain declarations of devotion and commitment.
Augé also needs to explain a few other details, like they need at least two witnesses who are of an age and frame of mind that they understand what is being asked of them, which is to be a living testament to their wedding. She’s also learned to be sure the marriage certificate is brought to the ceremony for the couple and herself to sign. A few couples have forgotten, which meant the ceremony had to be delayed until they had it in-hand.
For herself, she learned from a friend who was a marriage commissioner how to be prepared. She got herself a soft-sided basket to carry all documents, spare pens, a doily to spread over the table where the marriage paperwork would be signed, and to brighten up the table and keep things from flying away in the wind, she would paint a rock with the marriage date to give to the couple.
“Another thing I learned is a person’s signature doesn’t need to be legible,” she quipped.
With her tenure completed, Augé said it’s been lovely, with many fond memories of the love and families she’s helped create in her decade of service, with a few quirky, funny and unique ceremonies she’s been a part of.
