Do you need a marriage license BEFORE the wedding?

So the big fiasco this past week?  Getting our marriage license!

Em over at Burning River Bride recently posted about getting her marriage license.  I planned on having the same kind of post with a pic of us outside of the courthouse with the license in hand.  I had been wanting to get it for weeks, but Mr Fix It kept putting it off. 

So on Friday April 2nd, I told him, "We have just two weeks before the wedding!  It's time to get the license."

Well, of course on Friday afternoon, he calls me and asks "Babe, can we please get it another day?  I am just so not in the mood today."  Why do you have to be in the mood?  Really?

So I am not happy at all but tell him fine and tell him that since I work full time every day except Friday that he is going to have to meet me down there after work on Tuesday before they close at 5 pm to pick up our license.  He agrees.

Tuesday comes around, I get to the courthouse and call to see where he is.  He's in traffic on the freeway.  I walk up to the courthouse door and they are closed!  GASP!  What?  It's only 4:20 pm!  Don't most government buildings close at 5:00 pm?!?  WTF?!?

So I tell Mr Fix It who then proceeds to scream and cuss at me about all the time he has wasted and how he has 'so much to do.'  Then he yells "With everything you've been obsessed with about this wedding, you didn't think to call and check what the hours were before I drive all the way down here?"

Well, I tried to ask Jesus to keep me patient and calm but it didn't work well.  Because I began yelling at him about how it's all his fault because he kept putting me off and I wanted to do this on Friday when he blew me off!

We hung up and 5 minutes later he calls me back apologizing profusely and asking me to please forgive him, he's just totally stressed.  I told him I was sorry that I didn't call to check first (I thought about it and always do that but for whatever reason just sat with the assumption).  He told me there was no way he was going to let me apologize for anything with all the work I've been doing and he was totally wrong to scream at me like that.

No biggie, we're both over it and we just went to dinner and he helped me finish assembling the escort card favor boxes.  So we're going to go today instead.

Funny thing is - in the course of him yelling, he asks me why we even need to get the marriage license now anyway?  I told him I guess we won't be legally married on the 16th and he responds with "You can just fill it out and sign it later and date it with our wedding date.  It doesn't get mailed in until after anyway."

Now, I don't know much about it, but for some reason I am thinking you need to PICK UP the license BEFORE your actual wedding date!  Am I wrong?