Wedding Bell Blues : Bureaucracy: Couples who want to get married may encounter delays now that 14 county licensing bureaus have been closed. The new procedure can be viewed as a test of commitment.

Trying to tie the knot left Brian Andalora and Noreen Shiraki tied in knots Monday.

When the couple went to the county courthouse in Burbank to get a marriage license, officials turned them away, explaining that the licenses are no longer issued there.

When they drove to downtown Los Angeles to try their luck, officials took their applications and told them to come back in three days, explaining that licenses are no longer issued on the spot.

They were among scores of couples around Los Angeles County who discovered Monday that a walk down the aisle now must start with a few trips down the freeway, due to new county cutbacks.

Effective this week, officials closed 14 outlying marriage license bureaus throughout the county, consolidating work at four mega-marriage offices--in downtown, East Los Angeles, Norwalk and Lancaster--and at a smaller office on Catalina Island.

Because of the expected crush of paperwork at the consolidated offices, officials imposed the three-day wait for the nuptial documents. That means couples have to stand twice in the marriage license line--first to apply, then to pick up their $35 wedding permits.

County officials said the closures were ordered to save about $560,000 annually. They had predicted chaos on shutdown day--”like playing a Raiders football game inside a convenience store,” as one worker put it.

But Monday’s consolidation seemed to come off without a hitch--except for couples hoping to get hitched on the spot.

Administrators suggested that they apply in another county, one that still issues licenses the same day.

An alternative, said Richard Hughes, an assistant registrar-recorder/county clerk, is for couples in a hurry to go to a wedding chapel run by a minister who is qualified to issue “confidential” licenses for couples who have been living together.

No blood test is required of applicants for those documents, which cost $43.25 and can be issued by certified ministers as well as by the county.

Hughes said it might take days before the county learns whether the consolidation is one of those matches made in bureaucratic heaven.

“I haven’t reached our Lancaster office yet. Maybe all the people went out there,” said Hughes, whose offices in the past have issued about 300 licenses a day--a total of about 80,000 a year.

On Monday, the license window was shuttered in the Van Nuys courthouse and a letter taped to a wall told of the consolidation.

In Santa Monica, another location that was closed, blank mailing labels were stuck on the door of the clerk’s office to block out the sign that used to read “marriage licenses.”

Although no love-struck couples had shown up by afternoon, the office’s two white paper wedding bells were still hanging. Court staffers figured they’d probably come down now. “It’s no longer a happy place,” one said.

Those who traveled to the downtown Hall of Records were stoic about the changes.

“This is a happy occasion and nothing is going to change that,” said Vartan Nazarian, 29, an aerospace engineer from Canoga Park who waited in line with fiancee Stella Baydian, 25, a pharmacist from Sun Valley.

Ahead of them stood Carlos Larios, 18, and his fiancee, Veronica Garcia, 17, both of El Monte. One wait in line wasn’t bad; they’d survive another one, they predicted.

But still, “there’s the traffic and then paying to park--it’s $2 every 20 minutes, plus a $12 deposit up front,” said Larios, an Army inductee who plans to wed Garcia on Sunday.

Andalora, a 27-year-old entertainment company clerk who lives in Agoura Hills--about an 80-mile round trip from downtown Los Angeles--was unhappy at finding the Burbank license office closed. It is close to where he works.

“A day earlier and we could have done this in 15 or 20 minutes,” he said. His fiancee, Shiraki, 25, a payroll clerk from Northridge, gave him a hug.