Couple Went to Get Their Marriage License, Then Realized They May Have Accidentally Wed: ‘Adulting Is Hard’ (Exclusive)
"There was obviously some miscommunication," the bride-to-be tells PEOPLE
Courtesy of Sarah Lushan
Dave Kussell and Sarah LushanA couple may have accidentally gotten married before their wedding.
About a month before their nuptials, Sarah Lushan and Dave Kussell arrived at their district courthouse to obtain their marriage license. But they didn't expect to legally get married right then and there.
"Adulting is hard. I guess I’m Mrs. Kussell now?" Lushan captioned a TikTok video of the ordeal.
A marriage license is required to legally tie the knot. Typically, couples obtain their license before their big day. The license is valid for a set period of time, and must be returned after the wedding ceremony with signatures from the individuals getting married, two witnesses and the person who performed the ceremony in order to make the marriage valid and officially recorded.
If there's no waiting period, couples may choose to legalize their marriage license inside the civic building. This is the opposite of what Lushan and Kussell wanted because their wedding isn't until March 8 in Miami Beach, Florida.
"We arrived at the district courthouse at our appointment time and the man helping us made a joke — something along the lines of: 'Do you want to go all the way and have two anniversaries to celebrate?' " Lushan tells PEOPLE. "We definitely said no, but were kind of laughing at his joke and didn’t think he was serious. Maybe he didn’t hear us, but there was obviously some miscommunication."
In the comments section of her video, Lushan said that it was when she and her fiancé were brought into a "ceremony" room, where couples routinely exchange vows, that they realized things weren't going according to plan.
"They brought us into the 'ceremony' room and it was in that moment we knew we f----- up 😆," she commented.
She explains to PEOPLE that it was after she and Kussell signed some paperwork that the man instructed them to follow him into the ceremony space.
"It had a wall with a flower arch and a podium where he was going to perform a ceremony," she recalls.
The soon-to-be bride and groom are still confused on whether or not they accidentally got married.
"We honestly aren’t sure," Lushan admits. "In the ceremony room we told him this wasn't what we wanted. He had to redo all of our paperwork, and issue us a refund for a $30 ceremony fee that he charged us for that we never realized. It took another 20-30 minutes to do all of this."
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Although the marriage license situation was stressful, the couple's friends and family thought it was hilarious.
"Everyone was laughing!" Lushan says. "We asked a few of our married friends if the same happened to them but no one had the same experience."
While Lushan and Kussell don't personally know anyone who had a similar marriage license experience, a handful of the bride-to-be's commenters on TikTok could relate.
"I panicked when they made us raise our right hand and repeat after them," another bride commented.
"I've learned that you have to say VERY SPECIFICALLY what you want otherwise they will NOT understand what you're asking for 😭," someone else wrote.
Read the original article on People