Tears and smiles filled a courtroom when Army Spc. Michael Dunsmoor and Tracey Newcomb stood before Superior Court Judge Christine Pomeroy at 12:05 a.m. to get married.

"We gotta do what we gotta do," a smiling Pomeroy said before the ceremony. "We have to get these two married."

But the marriage, which brought 20 friends and family to the closed and empty courthouse, almost didn't happen.

Dunsmoor said the couple had talked about marriage for a while, and the looming deployment of his medical unit hurried up their plans.

Dunsmoor and Newcomb got their marriage license Tuesday.

But the Army then told Dunsmoor that his unit was headed overseas Friday -- which was the exact day the state's mandatory three-day marriage license waiting period ended.

The wedding was in jeopardy.

Debbie Requa, a court judicial assistant who arranges weddings, swung into action.

"We tried to figure out how to get the three-day wait waived," Requa said. "We talked to Gov. Gary Locke's office, but they said there was no way to waive the three days."

Wartime usually sparks flurries of military marriages, and that is happening in Thurston County.

"We usually do three to five marriages a week," Requa said. "Now we're doing eight to 10, and about half of them are military personnel."

State Sen. Karen Fraser, D-Thurston County, also tried to help, but it takes a new law to overturn an old law, and there wasn't time, Requa said.

Requa did a little math and figured out that the couple could get married at midnight Friday.

"Then we had to find out if the groom could make it," Requa said.

He could -- just barely.

"The judge was nice enough to come in now for us," Dunsmoor said before the ceremony.

At 12:05 a.m. Friday, Dunsmoor and Tracey Newcomb held hands in front of a smiling Pomeroy.

The bride wore a lavender gown, while the groom was sharp in his Army Class A uniform.

Their 17-month-old son, Parker, wore a pair of red pajamas with a baseball print.

"Marriage represents -- at the same time -- the most tender and most difficult moments in life," Pomeroy said.

Five minutes later, the couple were married.

Ten minutes after that, they climbed into a limousine for the short ride to Fort Lewis, where Dunsmoor's medical unit was about to go into lockdown before deployment.

"They wanted to do it before he left, and it was pretty exciting," said Colleen Clark, Newcomb's mother. "They'll have a big wedding when he gets back."

"It wasn't what I planned when I was a kid," Newcomb said. "It was nerve-wracking to get everything done, but it was fun.

"And we are very happy."