Jail to Start Charging for Weddings

[canuckofapeach]

Just in case your cellmate wants to make an honest man or woman out of you.

It's nobody's fairy tale wedding, but every year a handful of couples tie the knot in the sterile confines of a Cumberland County Jail visiting room. It's not for the ambience, but because the bride or groom -- or both -- is in jail. In the past, the service has been free. But now, inmates getting hitched in the hoosegow will have to pay.

The county jail plans to charge $75 to host a wedding, the same fee as that charged by the Portland city clerk. The fee is meant to reflect the time and work involved in having a jail wedding, such as the paperwork, ceremony preparations, security measures, guard staffing and the jail pastor's interviews with the prospective bride and groom.

The Rev. Jeffrey McIlwain, the jail's popular but part-time pastor, invests a lot of time interviewing would-be spouses to make sure couples are getting married for the right reasons.

"I'll ask them, 'Why are you doing this? Your life's a mess. His life's a mess. You need to get your life together,' " McIlwain said.

He reminds them that the closely supervised ceremony is not pleasant: " 'You're not going to have family and friends there. Why are you going to put yourself through that? Wait 'til you get out.' "

He also has to explain that being married doesn't mean inmates get special privileges during visits, which is sometimes the motivation.

Confronted with the realities of a wedding behind bars, many inmates don't follow through or decide to wait until they've served their time so they can do it properly. In fact, in the past two years only about a dozen weddings have been performed at the county lockup.

But some couples forge ahead, and for admirable reasons, McIlwain says. "They make the decision they're going to stick together through this time," he said. "Some people who have gone through this are still together" after release.

Others may have lived together for a long time before the time in jail, might have children and are almost embarrassed that they didn't get married earlier, he said.

Jails are obligated to allow inmates to marry under constitutional guidelines endorsed by the Supreme Court, said Cumberland County Jail Capt. Steven Butts, though the ceremony must adhere to security requirements.

The $75 fee is a steal -- so to speak -- compared with the $300 to $450 charged by The Rev. Starlene Joyner Burns, a Maryland minister and wedding officiant. Her fee includes a wedding ceremony workbook, a premarital questionnaire and a draft written ceremony.

Even with corrections officers standing in as witnesses, Cumberland County's jail weddings are relatively relaxed compared with the ones Chris Richardson presides over in California as a wedding officiant and attorney.

"There is something not particularly romantic, saying vows to each other via phone through a glass partition," he said.

mainetoday.com

[Figgy]

Good, too bad they don't make it equal to the cost of housing the prisoner. Then maybe idiots like my cousin wouldn't marry these guys. She got herself one who did 16 years for manslaughter in the first degree. He was paroled like a month ago. She was secretly married to him for 7 years and just told us. You just can't make this crap up.