• They don’t call in order of arrival. When you sign in, you pick a general reason (you need a letter, you need a card and you’re US- born, you need a card and are foreign-born, you have an appointment, application for benefits, etc…) and get a letter and number. They don’t call them evenly and we saw several people there for other reasons that got called and left before we were called.
• The guards/officials at the front desk can direct you to sign in correctly, but really can’t answer any other questions.
• The lady at the marriage license office said we just needed the marriage application copy for changing out names, but the guy we saw looked mostly at our marriage certificate. I’m guessing it was because that is typed, as opposed to the hand-written application. Still, my name nearly ended up being “Alexander.”
• We call in 2 weeks if we haven’t gotten our new cards yet.
• Our last name plan was cool. We now have the same last name: Bowers Schoen.

After that fun, we had lunch and Jeremy went on to a meeting. I went home and looked up directions to an OTP DMV to get my license changed. I’d planned on going to the one at South DeKalb mall, but Jeremy talked me out of it. I ended up going to the one in Lithonia, and it was nearly empty at 4:30. I learned some things there, too.

• I had to wait for two people in the check-in line, filled out a form, got a number, and was called nearly next.
• The licensure procedure has changed. I walked out with a paper, temporary license and was told that the permanent one would arrive in the next few weeks. I feel like I got handed a fake.
• I didn’t realize that you only get one free change and we’d already used it on the address change. This meant I had to buy a new license, complete with new picture. I was not prepared for this and the picture shows it.
• The woman left my old weight on the license. That’s an easy way to lose a few pounds!
• They don’t put spaces in last names. My last name is BOWERSSCHOEN.

But, for more updates, I’ve posted a State of the Union on my personal blog, since we’ve passed the 6-month mark, and Jeremy was not, in fact, the first to break a wedding present, as he feared. (And avoided using some of the awesome gifts, to avoid this fate.)

So, check them out!

Also, we’ve gotten the pictures from our awesome photographer in the mail. We’ve been so busy that we haven’t done anything with them besides confirm that we are the people in the pictures, but I’m sure that there will be some posting of a wedding-in-review coming up on this blog. I’m so sure of it, I’ve already started writing it.

• Mom’s
• Akshi’s
• Lisa’s
• Kathy’s
• Robert’s
• Jana’s

Am I missing yours?