The two wedding parties crossed paths in the lobby of the Davis County Courthouse.
The jeans-clad couple from the civil ceremony that started 10 minutes earlier walked into the clerk-auditor office to sign their marriage license.
Then, minding the train of her beaded white dress, Alexandria Youler, her groom and family filed into the conference-room-turned-chapel.
Arrangements of plastic flowers adorned the west wall and sat in plastic Roman-style vases; pillars flanked the couple.
This has been the scene for civil ceremonies in Davis County for the past eight years, since Chief Deputy Carl Allen took over performing weddings.
It's not a chapel, but Allen said he wanted to make these occasions more special than just reading the legal requirements while sitting at his desk. Allen performs most of the 400 weddings that pass through the courthouse each year.
"The rest of my day is accounting and auditing," Allen told 29-year-old Youler and her groom, 39-year-old Michael McGuire. "And this just brightens my soul."
As he walks with the couples down the halls of the courthouse right before the marriages, Allen asks them a few questions and tries to size them up.
"I never say the same thing to each one," he said, noting some couples just want to save money by getting married at the courthouse; others have an military groom or bride who might ship off soon. "I try to tailor it to what I think they need."
And occasionally, County Commissioner Louenda Downs will eavesdrop on those vows. Her office opens into the commission's old meeting chambers where large ceremonies are performed.
Allen gives the couples a bit of advice and is a warm figure, Downs said, "like everybody's grandpa."
"He's taken this on as much more than just performing a ceremony," she said. "He believes in the institution of marriage, and he wants people to understand it's more than an 'I do'; it's a commitment; it's worth investing in."
So Allen tells Youler and McGuire to spend the rest of their lives making the other happy, to do special little things every once in while for the other, to compromise in favor of the other more often than not.
"If she's happy, you'll be happy ... if he's happy, you'll be happy," Allen said.
Youler and McGuire had chosen to marry at the courthouse because it was inexpensive: $50 for the marriage license, $50 for the ceremony.
"We're kind of trying to keep it as traditional as possible without spending a whole lot of money," said McGuire, who suited up for the event.
And his bride wore a white dress and held little expectations of the scene where she would be married.
"Having the flowers made it way nicer -- a lot nicer," Youler said, adding she appreciated Allen's words of advice.
Most of all, she said, the best part of the day is "being married finally."
