Couple dating for nearly a decade are Cook County’s newest newlyweds

Nothing says romance like a subterranean, fluorescent-lighted office where a clerk’s questions to the about-to-be married couple include: “Are you related to each other?”

But a big, showy wedding wasn’t something either David Lakoskey and Kristina Skare longed for — even though they’re both middle-aged, getting married for the first time and dated for 9 ½ years before deciding to tie the knot.

Perhaps they should have picked another day.

The Lincoln Park couple got the celebrity treatment Wednesday, as they became the first couple in Cook County to be married in 2019.

“I didn’t expect all of this. I thought it was going to be, ‘Fill out the form,” said Lakoskey, 54, surrounded by two dozen or so TV cameras, reporters and curious bystanders in the Vital Records office at 50 W. Washington.

Skare, 42, told the throng that she’d been resisting marriage for a long time — “I’ve just never been in a big hurry,” she said — but then her boyfriend got it in his head a few months ago that it would be fun to be the first to be hitched in 2019.

“I kept on saying that I didn’t want to do that, and then on Monday, we were driving by [The Daley Center] and he pointed out where we would go in, how it would happen, and so, I was like, ‘Ok. We can do that,’” Skare explained.

So Skare, who works in hospital management, and Lakoskey, a federal auditor, showed up at 5:15 a.m. Wednesday for the big day.

The newly weds have no immediate plans for a honeymoon, although, in their pre-married life, they have traveled to every continent on the planet, they said.

And as they kissed, and collected a bunch of gifts donated by local businesses, including tickets to Riot Fest 2019 and a cheesecake, Skare said she planned to head to work, while Lakoskey said he was going home.

“I’ll probably grab some cheesecake and take a little lunch nap,” he said.