A match made in heaven, a wedding made in an office

I paced around the room, panic gripping me - Ellen was late.

Normally, that wouldn't bother me, because she doesn't have a very firm grasp on matters temporal. But this day wasn't a day to be running behind schedule.

No, today we were getting registered.

Finally, the day had come, and we'd managed to get all the relevant pieces of paperwork in order. My passport and Foreign Expert's Certificate were in my pocket, and the "Certificate Of No Impediment To Marriage" was in a plastic envelope clenched in my white-knuckled grasp.

As I circled the desk for what felt like the millionth time, the door burst open, and there she was - my blushing bride to be, slightly out of breath from running to the apartment.

"Have you got everything?"

"Yes, dear!"

"Are you sure? Checked twice? Let me look!"

I turned out my pocket, and demonstrated that I really did have all the bits of paper.

"Let's go!" Ellen cried, and we were off, down the stairs, across the university's long plaza and onto a bus.

Yes, a bus.

Not quite how I saw us going to get married. I had visions of a limousine, something quiet and swift, which would take us there in peace.

Instead, I found myself wedged in like a sardine in a can, still clutching the envelope with one hand, and Ellen with the other.

After a few stops, we got off the bus, and went into a large gray building. Inside, we headed along a wood paneled corridor, to a door marked, "Regesteration Office Number 1 [Sic]".

I knocked gently on the door, and we went in. Behind a large wooden desk was a young woman, who seemed to be dwarfed by the desk's sheer enormity. She ushered us to a low sofa by a coffee table, where we waited while she continued to sort out pieces of paper.

When she had finished, we took a seat at her desk.

Very briefly.

It transpired that we'd need a photograph of the pair of us, so we went back out of the office, down the hall and into another office. Here I handed over some money, and an older woman fussed over us like a mother hen, making sure our official wedding photo would be perfect.

We returned to "Office Number 1" and were handed some forms to complete. Luckily for me, they had found a form in English, so I didn't have to constantly ask Ellen to translate for me. I carefully filled it in, until I came to the slot marked "Ethnicity".

"What should I write in there?" I asked. The celebrant looked at me, looked at the form, the wall, the bookshelf and finally out of the window, as she struggled to think of an answer. Even I wasn't sure what I'd write there - my ancestry is a mixture of Silesian, Scottish, Italian, Yorkshire and Australian, and that certainly wasn't going to fit in a one-inch gap!

After a short deliberation, I was told to leave it blank, which seemed a safer option. Ellen and I signed the forms, which were then notarized and stamped with a heavy red seal. A printer whirred and spat out two small red books, in to which the celebrant fixed our wedding portrait. This was then embossed in a machine - and that was it.

Ellen and I were now officially married. And so the new Mrs Beaton and myself had our photograph taken clutching our little red marriage books in front of the Chinese seal and set off for some noodles.