Ventura County Sadly Bids Adieu to ‘I Do’

They came in pairs, some as young as 14 and others as old as 80, some wearing bathing suits and others in tuxedos and flowing bridal dresses.

Since 1980, nearly 2,000 couples have exchanged wedding vows at the Ventura County clerk’s office in a five-minute, $45 civil ceremony performed by deputy clerks in Spanish or English.

But the four weddings performed Friday marked the end of the county service, which fell victim to cost-cutting measures in the 1987-88 budget approved last week by the county Board of Supervisors.

“I’m going to miss doing the ceremonies,” said Josie Pano, one of several deputy clerks who performed weddings in addition to their other duties. “There are the happy couples and the others who seem to be dragging each other in.”

Pano’s last ceremony Friday was the marriage of Pablo Rodriguez, 22, and Patricia Lone, 19, both of Santa Paula. It was six years ago that the couple met on a blind date to Magic Mountain, and they have been dating ever since, said Rodriguez, a United Parcel Service employee.

“I fell in love with her right away,” Rodriguez said.

At the ceremony were the two friends who introduced them, as well as Lone’s parents and Rodriguez’s mother. But an estimated 300 friends and relatives will be celebrating the wedding at a reception planned for today at a park in Santa Paula, Rodriguez said.

Like other couples married at the Ventura County Government Center, Rodriguez and his fiancee were given the choice of having the ceremony in the clerk’s office or at a fountain outside. They chose the fountain. When it was over, the bride cried, and the groom beamed.

Not all ceremonies performed at the clerk’s office have gone as smoothly, however. Supervising clerk Diana Janzen recalled one that had to be canceled in mid-ceremony because the groom was too drunk to stand.

“He made it through getting the license, but he started to sway pretty bad during the ceremony, so we had to stop,” Janzen said. She said she did not know whether the couple came back.

Patty Reeder, deputy commissioner of civil marriages, performed the last wedding by the county clerk’s office late Friday afternoon. As is her practice, she gave no advice to the couple. But “now and then, I do ask if they are ready for this,” she said.

The couple, Jan Dulessi, 36, and Ed Schoonover, 45, both of Thousand Oaks, had not planned to end the county’s marriage program. “We were supposed to be here last Friday, but the blood test got delayed,” Schoonover said.

The two met through their work in data processing and began dating in the fall of 1984. They decided on a brief, civil ceremony because “we’re too busy to deal with that kind of stuff,” Schoonover said.

After spending a couple of nights in Ojai, the newlyweds will return to their Thousand Oaks home, which they share with Dulessi’s son and daughter and one of Schoonover’s sons, as well as three dogs and four cats, Dulessi said.

When asked if he was nervous before the ceremony, Schoonover said, “No, this is No. 3 for me.”