Annexes reopen, allowing marriage licenses
The Harris County Clerk’s Office reopened on Monday all annex offices that have been closed since March, increasing the number of appointments available for services like marriage licenses, birth and death certificates and business registrations.
The county buildings had been closed in compliance with the “Stay Home, Work Safe” policy issued during the pandemic.
The demand for marriage licenses at the downtown location has been high, and the reopening of 10 more locations offering licensing services should help with scheduling, according to officials. For now, licenses can be obtained by appointment only.
Between May and July, the county clerk’s office issued over 1,200 marriage licenses, according to spokeswoman Rosio TorresSegura, and the downtown site is expanding services from 14 appointments per day to 30. Each annex will book up to 14 appointments per day.
Torres-Segura said the office worked with the county engineers to figure out a way for the locations to open safely to accept appointments, but have been waiting to reopen since they closed in March.
In past months, several Houston-area couples had to cross county lines to make an appoint
ment for a marriage license. Before the annexes reopened, appointments weren’t available until Oct. 15.
But love doesn’t always want to wait.
Ben Nguyen and his then-fiancé Kendall Satcher were fitted for their wedding tuxes at Nordstrom the day before Houston shut down this spring. The intimate backyard ceremony they’d planned was put on hold, but as the pandemic continued, the couple decided to go ahead and tie the knot.
“We just know that we wanted to get married in case something should happen to us during this uneasy time. We didn’t want a lack of something binding between us causing issues down the road,” Nguyen said. It was the very end of June, and the couple would be married by early July.
However, when they called the Harris County Clerk’s Office to book an appointment, they were told that all appointments in the current cycle were full, and the office didn’t know when a new batch would open. So instead, the couple headed to Galveston to get their marriage license.
On a Monday, when the office was reopened after a holiday weekend, the couple went to the main annex.
“They gave us the paperwork that day,” Nguyen said.
Shelby Styles had a similar experience.
When the bride called Harris County Clerk’s Office about getting a license before her Aug. 1 wedding, they told her they had no available appointments. She called another county before finally finding a possible location in Galveston County. On June 30, Shelby and her now-husband, John Henry Styles, drove back to Houston with a marriage license, complete with a small pirate ship in the top corner.
Just Monday morning, Shelby got a text from a friend apologizing for texting the new bride on her honeymoon. She needed advice on getting her marriage license.
“I was just like, ‘Go to Galveston. It was so easy.’”
The Harris County Clerk’s Office also gave clients with existing appointments the option to book one earlier.
Slots filled up quickly. The
Chimney Rock location was already booked up for Monday and Tuesday. The location does still have openings on Wednesday, they said.