Miimii and I were in Spokane, Washington, 4000 miles from her home, 2200 miles from my home, with no friends except Bob. Because she had a fiance' visa, we had to marry within 90 days or she'd be sent back to Japan in a suitcase. So we figured...the sooner, the better.
Once we were married she'd get free medical care, and she had asthma and skin problems that needed to be looked at by a "doctor". If we married before January 1, I'd be able to take her off my taxes as a dependent (that saved us about $800).
So on the 26th we got a marriage license, and on December 29th we grabbed two co-workers, Gary and Matt, to be witnesses, gave my Mom and Dad a phone call from the parking lot of the chow hall at Fairchild Air Force Base, drove to the Spokane courthouse and did it!

I was nervous but when we started saying our vows, we both almost broke out in laughter. We were biting our lips really hard...it was one of the funniest things we'd ever done. When the judge said,"For better or worse" Miimii replied,"From better to worse".
We'd had some photos of the judge smoking in the courtroom (it was a no-smoking area) and thought about bribing him for our $50 we spent on the marriage license but never went through with that plan. Now that I look back on it, I'm sorta glad, because all over the press would be photos of me wearing sneakers, a leather jacket, and a clip-on tie to my wedding. By the way...Miimii's bath towel is a disguise. She wasn't too happy about showing her face with me on the worldwide web.
We bought a 2-liter bottle of Pepsi, ordered out for pizza, and had the reception at the apartment.