By the time you read this, it’ll be official. Sorry ladies, the bald-headed wonder is officially off the market, effective approximately 2:20 p.m. Saturday.

That’s not exactly true. I was really off the market more than a year ago when I fell in love with my soul mate.

Love is indeed a funny thing. It’s a bit like one’s lineage. You can’t change your upbringing and you can’t change whom you fall for.

If you had asked me a few years ago, I’d have said that I really didn’t expect to fall for someone and seek to share my life with her.

But we’re not in charge of our lives and God had a different plan for mine.

For those of you who don’t know, Julie Finley, who works for this newspaper as managing editor, and I were married on Saturday.

Our courtship — and I expect our marriage — will be a bit different.

Both of us have worked at newspapers for years so both of us know how strange working at a newspaper can be for a single person.

Throw in a relationship and things can get interesting sometimes.

Fortunately, we both work for a newspaper owner who knows a thing or two about newspapers and about love.

When we explained our intentions early on in our courtship, he was happy for us and has continued to be supportive ever since.

Lots of people have asked me how we work together and also have a relationship outside the office.

To avoid problems in our building, we put measures in place to avoid questions of impropriety — pay issues are handled by a third party, all of our department heads were aware of the relationship from the beginning, etc.

Those are probably things most folks who are dating don’t have to worry about. But that’s OK. Those are likely minor bumps on the road of life.

Other interesting things that come up include having to calmly sit by why someone calls your fiancé a racist. Or spending the few days before the wedding trying to figure out how to cover a hurricane with no power for three days.

It’s all part of what makes life — and our relationship — interesting.

So how does this affect the newspaper and its readers?

We don’t think it changes much at all.

Both of us very much love Natchez and love our jobs.

We’ve each got a job to do and we’re each capable of juggling our jobs and our lives, keeping the two separate when necessary and knowing how to prioritize by the moment when necessary.

Although the two of us share editorial board responsibility with Web editor Ben Hillyer, we work as a team of three equal voices.

As most people do, we disagree sometimes on issues. When we disagree about an issue, one person doesn’t have to bow to another’s opinions.

If we fundamentally disagree on an issue, we simply won’t take a stand on it. That’s a policy that’s at play in many of the country’s newspapers, and it’s a long-standing policy here, too.

We’re looking forward to many years of growing as a couple and staying here in the Miss-Lou.

And, if any of you ever feels that we’re being unfair with something that we’ve written or said, please let us know. This is our job. We can handle it if you disagree with one of us or both of us.

We love one another very much, but we can also be professional enough to take constructive criticism well, too.

Thanks for your readership.

Kevin Cooper is publisher of The Natchez Democrat. He can be reached at 601-445-3539 or kevin.cooper@natchezdemocrat.com