SAXONBURG — Saxonburg Mayor Pamela Bauman hopes the couples who appear before her to get married have some beautiful memories of their nuptials.

Bauman has created a sort of wedding chapel at her office at the borough building at 420 W. Main St.

Her “chapel of love,” as she calls it, was installed six months after she was sworn in as mayor Jan. 6, 2014.

“I was watching TV one night with my husband (Bob) and it came to me,” said Bauman, who owns Mimi's Memories Antique Co-op at 225 W. Main St. “I had wedding gowns and lovely decorations at the shop and I could use them to make it better.”

Bauman has set up the chapel in the former police dispatch room left vacant when the police department moved across the hall after the district judge's office moved out of the borough building.

“The decoration makes it better than just getting married in front of a desk,” the mayor said. “I wanted it to be romantic and pretty, so they can have some lovely pictures and nice memories.”

This contrasts the ceremony itself which, once the paperwork is readied, takes about five minutes and is read from a form printed by the county. She charges a nominal fee for her work.

Bauman wears a robe and once the ceremony is complete, signs the paperwork and makes sure the marriage license is mailed back to Judy Moser, who is the Butler County register of wills and clerk of orphans court.

Bauman estimates she's married 42 couples since she's been mayor. She said she has had couples from Ohio and Allegheny County.

“One couple came here this summer from Missouri for the Bantam Jeep Festival,” she said. “They figured as long as they were here, they would get married as well. To each his own.”

“I think it is not many (Saxonburg) residents,” she said. “Most of them apply for a marriage license in Butler, and they ask who is qualified to do it (marry them).”

Moser said, “We tell them any qualified mayor or district judge can do them (marriages) and ask them what area of the county they are from.”

Couples looking to get married usually check with Bauman before showing up.

“They call me and ask if I'm free,” said Bauman who, if she can get someone to watch the shop, will go to the borough building to perform the ceremony.

Once when she couldn't get someone to watch her business, Bauman recalled, “One couple came to the shop and I married them on the back porch.”

But it wasn't a towering passion that made that wedding so urgent, the mayor said.

“They had to get married by Thursday because her COBRA health insurance was running out, and they had to get married so she could go on his insurance.”

In fact, a lot of the people she marries aren't doing it for the romance, she said.

“There are people who have been living together for 30 years and have families and grandchildren, who get married,” she said, adding she thinks it's to simplify legal issues that may come up.

Not a lot of starry-eyed teenagers showing up in her office either, she noted. “Most are second marriages or people who have lived together a long time.”

Most weddings in the borough building take place on Saturdays, she noted. The audience is usually parents, children and grandchildren of the bride and bridegroom and friends, Bauman said.

“It is all part of the job. I love it. It is an honor for me and I love it,” Bauman said.

“I would leave with the hope that whoever secedes me would continue” the “chapel of love.”