Courtrooms, pt. 1

I can't remember if we've mentioned this on the blog, but Aaron and I are engaged (happened exactly in the middle of this project!) and are planning on getting married in a courthouse, specifically the courtroom, hopefully by the judge (we're not religious types).  We aren't done with the tour yet, but only have 14 left to go: 13 in the Rio Grande Valley / South Texas, and our own Travis county here in Austin.  Since we decided this summer that Marfa was too far away for a wedding, that automatically rules out the S. Texas courthouses, so as far as wedding plans go, we've seen all the ones we need to see.  However, have no fear, we WILL finish - we have a 3-day weekend reserved in November for S. Texas, so keep your eyes peeled for that update.  In the meantime, we have narrowed down the list - in June, we sent 27 letters to 27 judges inquiring about the possibility of using their courthouse for a wedding and the logistics and costs involved.  18 of them wrote us back, so of the 18, we've narrowed it down to 9 finalists - things like distance, size of courtrooms, judge's unwillingness to marry us on a Saturday were factors in that decision.  Of the 9 finalists, we had only seen 1 courtroom (!), so we have to backtrack a little to go check out the courtrooms.  When we started this project, we were just barely dating, so when we visited the closest courthouses (also some of the most beautiful it turns out), we weren't interested in going inside for any reason and we were doing our trips on weekends, when courthouses are closed.   So, this post and the next one will be pictures of courtrooms - I'm not going to tell you which one is our favorite so far - feel free to guess!  : )

Boerne - Not actually part of our trip on Friday, Oct. 5, but the only courtroom we'd already seen.

Lockhart courtroom.

Gonzales courtroom - we couldn't get in to photograph it properly because court was in session (you should have seen the hair on the prisoner!).

Goliad courtroom.

Hallettsville courtroom.

La Grange courtroom.

Giddings courtroom.

And by the way, the backtracking is more fun than the initial visit - just because the courthouse is gorgeous on the outside says nothing about the interior, so they're still big mysteries!  There were definitely some surprises on this trip!