We had multiple weddings, but it wasn't because of divorce. Our first wedding had paperwork errors.

• Atsuko Okatsuka and her husband got married in 2017, but the paperwork was never filed.
• They had to go to the Los Angeles County courthouse to have a second wedding.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Atsuko Okatsuka. It has been edited for length and clarity.

My wedding to my husband, Ryan, was a beautiful day. People flew in from all over the world to watch us say our vows.

I got such a great deal on wedding dresses that I bought two because I couldn't pick, one for $50 and another for $100. I ended up choosing the $50 one for my big day.

Ryan and I met on a film set nine years ago in Los Angeles, where we live. My friend Clayton was making a short film, I was producing it for him, and Ryan was acting in it. Clayton claims we ruined the movie because Ryan and I were flirting so much. We were falling for each other during the filming, and it never got finished. I guess we were too distracted.

It turned out that Clayton was a celebrant, and he offered to marry us, as he was the one who introduced us. So six years ago, Clayton married us. Or so we thought! This month, I learned we're not actually legally married at all.

My husband and I were shocked to learn we weren't technically married

I'd been trying to get Ryan on my health insurance for a while. We were asked for proof that we were married, specifically, our marriage certificate. We thought we'd had one at some point, but we're not very good at paperwork, and when we went to look for it, we couldn't find one anywhere in the house.

So we sent off a request to the City of Los Angeles for a copy of our marriage certificate, then set off for a holiday in Tokyo, and Taipei, Taiwan, thinking the marriage certificate would be in our mailbox when we returned. It wasn't.

My husband called the city, and when he finally got through, it told him that we weren't legally married. There was no record of us being married. Though we had a wedding in 2017 with 180 of our closest friends and family, the paperwork had never been filed.

I was half asleep when I heard it, as I'd been taking a nap. I thought it was a dream. Then I fell back asleep. That's how I deal with problems and conflict: I fall asleep, like a baby. It's so very like me and my husband to have this happen. We aren't very good at being adults. When I woke up, my "husband" was running around trying to figure out what to do about this problem we'd found ourselves with.

It was starting to sink in that we hadn't been married this whole time. For the past six years, we'd basically just been dating, like boyfriend and girlfriend. That's when we started laughing. After all, I'm a comedian. You couldn't write this stuff.

We headed to the courthouse to get married — for the 2nd time

We needed to sort it out: not just get married for real but prove we'd got married six years ago. To do so, we learned we had to drive an hour to the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk with two witnesses who were at the first wedding. I took my grandma, who brought me up, and my friend Kevin Yee, who had many roles on the day of our second wedding — usher, singer, flower girl, purse holder. My grandma stifled giggles while she hummed the traditional "Wedding March" song as we walked along the corridor to the office.

I tried to obscure the details of what had happened when I explained it to my grandma so she wouldn't be disappointed in us. I was like, "You know, with government papers, there are just so many files. Sometimes paperwork doesn't go through as it should — such a hassle, right?" It was so she wouldn't think that we were just stupid. But she said: "It's fine — when do you want me?"

Then, I texted Clayton and said, "Hey, guess what, funny story, me and Ryan aren't actually married!" And his immediate reaction was, "OMG — is this my fault?"

I hadn't thought about whether it might have been his job to file the paperwork since we're not very good in that area. When I posted a video, commenters said it's the officiator's job to file the paperwork. Maybe this was him exacting his revenge on me and Ryan "ruining" his short film. He'll think it's so funny I'm blaming him. Or maybe he'll be mad. Who knows?

My father-in-law is a preacher and begged to do our ceremony, but we said no. We told him that we didn't believe in his kind of Christianity because it's conservative and homophobic. We wanted to have a queer friend of ours marry us. What's funny is, my father-in-law would never have lost the paperwork.

They backdated our marriage certificate

We are now married. We had to pay $200, and they backdated the certificate to 2017. They didn't ask for pictures or anything — we could've got two witnesses off the street. The whole thing seems so silly to me: The straights got married again. It was just like, "Give us $200. Here's your wedding certificate, dumb-dumbs." I can't believe we withheld marriage from gay people this long when we're so careless with it. I had to remarry the same person without us ever splitting up.

I did get to wear that second, more expensive dress, though. Maybe I was cursed for keeping two dresses. The universe was like, "Well, you haven't worn the second one yet."

On the day, they issued two marriage certificates. One was to take away there and then. And I have a confession: We've already lost that one. The other one just arrived in the mail this week, thank God.

And yes, I can definitely see this in one of my upcoming comedy routines. It's too good not to include.