Love (and Law) is in the air More than a few Fowler Law School alumni tie the knot with a little help from Associate Dean Jayne Kacer

Jayne Kacer was, understandably, nervous at her first wedding.

Having just wrapped up wedding number seven, Kacer, Dale E. Fowler School of Law adjunct faculty and the Associate Dean for Student Affairs and Administration, says it doesn’t get any easier – she still gets butterflies.

“I get them every time,” Kacer says. She pauses for a moment over her cup of coffee and then explains.

“It’s an honor to do it … to be part of one of the most special days of their lives.”

Call it the ultimate act of office hours, but Kacer’s open door policy for her law students does not close. Kacer has not only been supportive counsel for law students during their time at Fowler, talking them through rough patches and tough years of study, but has also talked alumni through seven wedding ceremonies as an officiant.

Kacer performs the ceremonies for free and was ordained online to keep things, well, legal. But it is more than providing the words and standing at the end of the aisle. It’s a personal journey for Kacer and her alumni as they work toward the future.

Love on the witness stand

Blythe Harris ’11 first met Mark McLane when they were both in court. She works as a deputy district attorney prosecuting misdemeanor crime in Stanislaus County and he was the arresting officer on the witness stand describing a DUI case he had brought in.

Fast forward a few years and they’re planning their wedding. Both from Orange County, they opted to move the wedding home to be closer to family and friends. As for who would perform the ceremony? That was a bit of a tougher sell.

They weren’t inclined towards clergy, didn’t want a stranger and didn’t want to write their vows.

Captain, can you marry us?

Not necessarily. Despite the popular notion that a ship’s captain can perform nuptials, that sentimental thought won’t hold water in California, according to California Family Code Sections 400-402. Unless your captain meets one of the various other requirements — is an ordained clergy person, or an active or retired judge, etc. — you better find someone else to make it official.

“My job is pretty much public speaking — he didn’t want the pressure. We’d do the repeat after me,” Harris says.

Then Harris’ mother mentioned that Kacer had been performing ceremonies.

In a way, Harris says, Kacer is responsible for her getting married in the first place.

Her first year in law school was a tough one and at the end of it, Harris was suffering some misgivings as to whether or not she had set herself on the right path.

“I had a really difficult year and came to her (saying) I don’t know if I want to, can do this,” Harris recalled. Kacer gave her counsel, support and helped her see it through. After she graduated, Harris worked her way up in the world of county attorney jobs, first as a volunteer attorney in Los Angeles, then attorney in San Bernardino and now her present position.

“I really met (Mark) because I went to law (school) and finished,” Harris says.

So when Harris asked Kacer if she would do the ceremony, she said yes — to addressing the crowd.

Love is Love

Rebecca Kipper ’13 met her wife Alexandria Rosas, now Kipper, in 2007 while both were serving in the Army National Guard and going to deploy in Iraq before “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” was repealed.

“In Iraq, DADT was still in effect, so obviously we had to keep our relationship under wraps. When we met, Alex and I were both enlisted. After Iraq, and right before law school started, I went to Officer Candidate School and got commissioned as an officer, while Alex stayed enlisted. So, when we went to Kuwait, DADT was repealed, but there were other complications.  Specifically, because gay marriage was still banned.”

The policy in the military is that enlisted and officers cannot date each other or socialize. However, if two of the same rank are dating while they are both enlisted, and one then becomes an officer, they have one year to get married, Kipper explains.

“However, obviously, we couldn’t get married, so we still had to keep our relationship very quiet,” Kipper says.

Together, they weathered two deployments, one of which cut into Rebecca’s education schedule in law school and delayed her intended graduation date.

“Dean Kacer, she was such  . . . an instrumental part of my law school experience,” says Rebecca.

Kacer helped organize a special “We Miss You” video message to Kipper while she and Alex were deployed to Kuwait. Although she would have to put off her official ceremonies for a year, the staff, faculty and students at Fowler wanted to make sure Rebecca knew that she was missed and loved on graduation day.

It took an extra year, but Rebecca graduated from Fowler in 2013 and passed the bar. Kipper remembers Kacer being an outspoken friend and supporter throughout.

That year, the couple began to plan a cross country move to West Virginia for a position for Rebecca as a U.S. District Court judicial law clerk.

The going away party with all their friends, family and military compatriots was planned for the Saturday after the bar exam in August. Then in June, the Supreme Court ruled to overturn Prop. 8.

“We decided to turn that Aug. 3 party into a really informal kind of ceremony – Alex’s sister-in-law and Alex are trying to sell our house . . . we kind of let the sister-in-law (go ahead) and turned it into an actual wedding,” Rebecca says with a laugh. Kacer was the obvious pick to perform the ceremony. They had a packed schedule: The bar exam was Thursday, the wedding was Saturday and on Monday they would leave for West Virginia.

Rebecca and Alex quietly exchanged vows in a garden ceremony.  Years of work, friendship and a life together were finally, formally joined.

“In her remarks she talked about all those things about me and Alex, we both served under don’t ask don’t tell until very recently . . . both deployed to Iraq in 2007. She really knew who we were and she really kind of put all those pieces together,” Rebecca says. “One of the cool things about Dean Kacer doing our wedding, at the same time we’re moving on with our new lives and saying goodbye to our old life as well.

She Does “I Do’s”

Every ceremony has its own language, its own tone, all based on Kacer’s work beforehand with the couples who have asked her to preside over their day.

“I want each of their weddings to be special and to be what they truly want for their day,” Kacer says.

For alumni Lauren Shaw ’13 and Kevin Grochow ’12, this past November that special touch meant the ultimate in romance: language from a Supreme Court ruling.

It’s not as dry as it sounds. Lauren and Kevin picked the inspirational portion from the majority opinion delivered by Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy in regards to Obergefell vs. Hodges.

In that ruling Justice Kennedy wrote: “This opinion was a part of affirming the right to marriage for same-sex couples: From their beginning to their most recent page, the annals of human history reveal the transcendent importance of marriage . . . its dynamic allows two people to find a life that could not be found alone, for a marriage becomes greater than just the two persons.”

Kacer worked that language eloquently into the vows, making it accessible to the guests and moving for Lauren and Kevin. So moving for Lauren, Shaw says, that she cried.

The couple met at the Fowler School of Law about four years ago Lauren says, after Kevin posted on Facebook inviting people to come on a hike of the Holy Jim trail at Saddleback Mountain.

The turnout was Kevin and Lauren — and a bunch of Kevin’s friends from high school. The hike was the beginning of many hiking trips to come. When the topic of marriage came to the forefront, specifically who would do it, the couple knew it had to be Kacer.

“If there was someone you could always rely on, it was Jayne . . . if you’re having a crummy day — she’s there for you,” Lauren says.

The conversation to decide on Kacer came down to a very simple statement between Lauren and Kevin: “She gets us — this is good.”

As for how the ceremony went?

“I want everybody to hear (the vows) over and over . . . I’m in love with my wedding,” Lauren laughs.

Anniversary love at the last minute

One call to solemnize a wedding was quick and somewhat out of the blue. Kandis Burns-Summers ’12 and her wife Leah Summers met July 3, 2006, and had been engaged for about five years by the time they were married on July 3, 2013.

They’d known they wanted to get married, but legally could not. Five years of waiting suddenly turned into two weeks of planning. Well, kind of – it was barely more than one week.

“As for plans for the wedding– since we had been waiting for so long and didn’t know when we would be able to finally get married, we actually never made any concrete plans,” Burns-Summers says. “When we were finally able to legally get married thanks to the decision in late June of 2013, we just jumped at it.”

There was less than no time to figure it all out – the one concept they struck on was having their wedding anniversary be the same day as their first date.

“Of course, that left us about a week to pull the whole thing together,” Burns-Summers replies.

Kacer was the first call. Out of sheer luck and scheduling, the wedding happened.

“Dean Kacer and I had talked a few times throughout my three years at Chapman Law (2009-2012) about the wait for marriage equality, plus I was vaguely aware that she had performed at least one wedding during those years,” Burns-Summers says.  “Where I’m going with this is that I lucked out– the only person I could think of asking to officiate was also the perfect person to ask.  And thank goodness she was available because when Jayne sat down with Leah and myself, it became pretty apparent that neither of us had thought of the details of vows and Dean Kacer still managed to write up what our friends and family have called one of the most beautiful ceremonies they’d been to.”

What what were those words exactly? Burns-Summer humorously admits she’s not exactly sure of it.

“It is all kind of a blur of emotion. That said, I still remember my wedding day as one of the best and happiest of my life.”