A Civil Ceremony With a Civilian’s Touch

From her first day in the marriage business, Yolanda E. Purdy particularly enjoyed the authority of the black robe.

“I thought, ‘I’m keeping this job,’ ” she recalled. “This is the only place where they call me ‘Your Honor.’ ”

Purdy is neither a judge nor a minister, but one of several people who have volunteered in the last two years to perform civil marriage ceremonies as Los Angeles County searches for ways to save money.

Volunteers include people such as Paul Madwin, 60, a retired Yellow Pages sales manager who lives in West Los Angeles. He figures he performs a wedding every 15 minutes on Fridays in Van Nuys. Madwin, who was born on Valentine’s Day, has been married 38 years.

“I was born on love day, so it’s appropriate that I marry people,” he said.

Both Purdy, a Whittier homemaker, and Madwin are deputy commissioners of civil marriages. Because they are at least 18 and interested, they were selected to help couples tie the knot under the authority of the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s office.

“It’s a nice conversation piece,” said Kathy Treggs, manager of public records at the department. “Over dinner, volunteers may say, ‘Guess what I did today? I married 15 people.’ ”

The program started in 1997, Treggs said. Madwin and another volunteer work Fridays in the Van Nuys office; 11 others, including Purdy, work Monday through Friday at the Norwalk office. In January, volunteers will also be assigned to the new Florence-Firestone office in Los Angeles--although Treggs said no additional volunteers are needed.

The deputy commissioners offer three ceremonies--no ring, single ring and double ring--for couples who don’t want religious celebrations or will have them at a later date. Ceremonies cost $25, which goes into the county general fund, said Treggs. The weddings are performed in small chapels, decorated with metal arches and flowers, at county offices.

Music can be arranged.

“We hum ‘Here Comes the Bride’ once in a while,” said Purdy, 57. Madwin has married people from as far away as Malaysia and Africa, some wearing traditional dress.

“Some are excited, some are very stoic. Sometimes men cry and brides don’t,” Madwin said. “They dress in everything--from shorts to bridal gowns, tuxedos to jeans, from flip-flops to tuxedo leather shoes.”

Purdy once encountered a bride in a loose plaid shirt, cut-up jeans and tennis shoes, accompanied by a groom in a dark blue suit. “She looked like a scarecrow,” Purdy recalled.

But once the woman closed the chapel door behind her, she unbuttoned her shirt, revealing the lovely wedding dress she was wearing underneath. The newlywed explained she didn’t want anyone to know she was getting married.

On occasion, couples change their minds. One couple married on Friday returned on a Monday asking for an annulment.

“The answer is no,” Madwin said. “There’s no cooling-off period when we perform the marriage.”

Deputy commissioners may legally refuse to marry a couple only if one is intoxicated, Treggs said.

Purdy once performed the wedding ceremony for an 89-year-old groom and his 78-year-old bride.

They shared the same last name. Each had been married three times--to each other.

The groom manfully shouldered the blame. “He said, ‘It’s my fault we’ve been divorced three times. I finally learned I’m a jerk. I want to die with her at my side,’ ” Purdy said.

“I ordered them never to get divorced again,” she said with a laugh.

On a recent Friday in Van Nuys, a Reseda couple were late because the groom, Luis Lara, was unable to leave his job early. Wearing jeans and work boots, the 30-year-old maintenance man had to skip lunch and was only able to change into a clean shirt; he still had some paint stains on his hands during the ceremony.

However, surrounded by friends and relatives, he and Mirna Betancourt, 26, were declared husband and wife.

Next, Christine M. Frost, 31, was on her third trip to the altar. The groom, Alejandro Guzman-Casasola, 36, of Santa Ana, held their year-old son, Gino, throughout the ceremony.

“We’ve been together a long time,” said Frost, of Reseda. “It’s for Gino and because we never fight.”

For Madwin, it was all in a day’s work. “I smile when I get there, and I smile when I leave,” he said.