Wedding officiants

[basil]

After having booked almost every vendor for our September 2008 wedding, I finally got around to looking for an officiant this weekend. I basically did a search and emailed a bunch of people. Turns out that most of them are booked! Gah.

Anyway, the choice seems to be between 2 categories of officiants: judges and non-denominational ministers. Not having met with any of them yet, it''s difficult to get a good sense of how much difference it would actually make. Non-denominational ministers seem to be more expensive, but maybe offer a more "personalized" ceremony - but I''m unclear as to what that actually entails? I''m assuming that a judge will probably just read something relatively standard.

I think I am going to have my dad read an excerpt from his and my mom''s marriage ceremony (that he wrote) as our reading. I think otherwise I''d be fine with something pretty traditional and standard. Fiance and I aren''t really into being spiritual so much. I guess I feel like maybe it''s weird to not want something "personalized", since it is our wedding after all.

But enough rambling. If you are having a non-church-affiliated officiant, which did you choose - a judge or a minister? Why? And if anyone has experiences with the differences?

 

[ladyciel]

Ack, Basil, FI and I are basically in the same boat...though, we still need florist and cake, too, for our Sept 08 wedding. Neither of us is religious, and we''re getting married in a garden. All the searches I''ve done have turned up nondenominational officiants who want to charge 300-600, advertising how they''ll meet with you to give you a custom ceremony (aka let you pick sections out of their big binder, if you go by what we were told by a few of them at a bridal show we attended

). Meanwhile, FI and I have decided we want to write our own vows, if not all of the ceremony, and it seems silly to pay that much money to someone who is probably just going to read whatever we give them and in total spend maybe 20 minutes doing so.

So, anyone have any good advice on this??

 

[dani13]

Hi Basil,

MH and I were married by a non-denominational minister. I had done a ton of research, found him, and when my friend was looking for one, I suggested him. He ended up performing their ceremony and it was lovely. So, we booked him for our wedding too. Ironically, he only lives a few miles away from us!

He charged $500 for his services (included guidance pre-ceremony- he sent us a bunch of examples of different ceremonies he had performed in the past), and then a 30 minute ceremony on the wedding day. He also always made himself available if we needed anything, had any questions, etc., throughout the whole process. We picked our own readings, and even included a unity candle ceremony in our service. He truly did a fabulous job on the day of....he knew exactly what we wanted...a spiritual, non-religious ceremony, which he performed beautifully....we received many compliments about him from our guests.

I would do some research for non-denominational ministers in your area (also check The Knot...sometimes they advertise there as well). I think a minister would execute a more personalized ceremony than a judge....I may be wrong, but my opinion is really just based on my personal experience....

 

[sumbride]

We went with a judge, and it was a good decision! She let us write our own ceremony, but provided some guidance and worked with us on the logistics. She was FANTASTIC and she said she loved doing weddings because most of her day job wasn''t really happy and uplifting... she''s a Federal Magistrate, so she spends most of her time on really depressing and longwinded federal cases... plus she helped keep our groomsmen in line! We said "If you don''t pay attention, she can sentence you!" ha.

 

[surfgirl]

We did what Dani did. We hired a non-demon. minister. She was wonderful. We also wanted a very spiritual but non religious ceremony. She sent us all the different ceremonies she had on hand and we cut and pasted from three of them, to create what we wanted. She would also have been fine with us writing our own vows, had we wanted to. It was a really lovely ceremony, full of meaningful, spiritual content, with references to the natural surroundings where we married. I would do it that way again if I had to do it over.

I think you just need to ask each officiant if they have existing varieties of ceremony text that you can use, and are they okay with you cutting and pasting from what they have or writing your own vows from scratch. My only concern would be that they''re flexible to your wishes.

 

[zoebartlett]

Hi Basil,

We're also going with a JP. We had one booked (she was GREAT and we clicked with her right away) but then she ended up having to cancel. She recommended another JP to us, and we're fine with her. We LOVED the first one but we trust her judgement with her recommendation. She charges $200 for the ceremony itself and $100 for the rehearsal, which is optional. We're doing one though, so it will cost us $300. I've only talked with her on the phone and we're not meeting with her until the spring. Apparently, she whips up the ceremony with couples at a formal meeting a few months before their wedding. We're planning on our ceremony being 30 minutes or under. I don't think we'll have music played during the ceremony itself but we will have a few readings most likely.

I was brought up Catholic but my family isn't practicing anymore. Religion isn't a big part of our lives, and in fact, my FI is agnostic (he'd probably say athiest). I was never confirmed, so marrying in the Church wasn't really an option. I could take a class and then I'd be able to marry in the Chuch if I wanted, but I chose not to. We wanted someone who respect our wishes and not have religion be part of the ceremony, and a JP seemed the way to go.

I've been to a few weddings where the cereony was done by a JP and they didn't have any personal touches at all. One was about 5 minutes long. Too short, in my opinion, to be very meaningful, but it's what the happy couple wanted. I think if you meet with a JP, be specific about what you're looking for. If there are certain reading you want to include, bring them (maybe not the first time you meet with him/her but in a follow-up meeting).

 

[musey]

Date: 1/13/2008 11:21:47 AM
Author:basil
After having booked almost every vendor for our September 2008 wedding, I finally got around to looking for an officiant this weekend. I basically did a search and emailed a bunch of people. Turns out that most of them are booked! Gah.

Eep! I need to get on this one!

 

[brazen_irish_hussy]

Its not that judges are more personalized, its that many of them don't really like doing weddings since they have to do them on weekends. My dad is a lawyer so he knows a lot of local judges and he knows one who really likes weddings which is who we are trying to get a hold of. Because he likes doing it, he is also the best, even our venue recommended him. I think that would be the main difference.
As for non denominational ministers. There are groups, I think the unitarians are one, where anyone can get certified to do weddings with them by doing something online. My brother's friend wanted him to speak at his wedding so my bro went online and is now registered to do weddings.
If you aren't religious though, couldn't you just have someone close to you who is a good speaker do it?

 

[surfgirl]

To all ladies who are looking for an officiant (whether it's a JP or a minister), I forgot to say in my earlier post, I think it's REALLY important that you feel a connection to the officiant you select. Dont settle on one, interview a few of them. If possible, meet them in person to really see what they're like. This is the person who will be MARRYING YOU! For us, Mr. Surfgirl wanted someone cool and non-religious, but I ended up selecting the officiant based on the fact that I just got a "good vibe" from her at first, and I liked her communication style and I ended up being right on the money about her. I think it's important to have that connection to your officiant if it's someone you have no prior history with.

Lastly, our officiant had a sliding scale, depending on what you could afford, based from $150-$300. We gave her the maximum because she was excellent.

 

[dani13]

Date: 1/13/2008 4:39:29 PM
Author: surfgirl
To all ladies who are looking for an officiant (whether it's a JP or a minister), I forgot to say in my earlier post, I think it's REALLY important that you feel a connection to the officiant you select. Dont settle on one, interview a few of them. If possible, meet them in person to really see what they're like. This is the person who will be MARRYING YOU! For us, Mr. Surfgirl wanted someone cool and non-religious, but I ended up selecting the officiant based on the fact that I just got a 'good vibe' from her at first, and I liked her communication style and I ended up being right on the money about her. I think it's important to have that connection to your officiant if it's someone you have no prior history with.


Lastly, our officiant had a sliding scale, depending on what you could afford, based from $150-$300. We gave her the maximum because she was excellent.

Agree with you 100% Surfgirl, about feeling a connection with your officiant. We felt the same way when we were looking for someone to perform our ceremony. When we met our officiant, we knew he was the person we wanted to marry us. We just really liked him and respected him as a person, and felt he would do a lovely job with our ceremony.

 

[karasue91]

We are having a JP marry us as well. I met with a 2 people, and really liked both. In the middle of interviewing the first one, FI shocked me by saying he would like to write his own vows. I about fell off my chair, because he is NOT the type to want to do something like that with hundreds of people around.

The first guy was really nice, we liked him a lot, but the second guy was more about customizing our ceremony for us. He said he usually has the couple each pick 5 words that describe the other and email him the 5 words, but don''t tell the other what the words they chose were. Then he writes a little bit about each word and talks about how it relates to the other person. I thought this was really nice since its an opportunity for a little humor and also makes it more about us. He also encourages couples to write their own vows but will be giving us lots of sources to use to find things we like.

At first I didn''t really feel the need to write our own vows, but in the end FI convinced me that this is the ONLY time we are getting married and it would probably be more meaningful for both of us if we had more input to the whole thing. Both of them charged $250, which from doing some research seems the norm in Calgary.

Neither of the guys we interviewed were either judges or ministers...the guy we ended up choosing has a PhD in Psychology, but runs a small consulting firm. I''m not sure what the first guy does, he might be retired, but neither of them had any affiliation to a church or a court. What I''m trying to say is that I think you probably have a lot more options than just ministers or judges....

 

[sap483]

Hey Basil-

My best friend''s dad is going to marry us. He''s a JOP in CT and we have to get a bill passed in RI to let him officiate- but it shouldn''t be a big deal. He''s been like another dad to me over the years, so I''m really happy to have him marry me. He''s also very willing to let you personalize the ceremony- he has some standard ones that you can work off of.

 

[violet02]

Two of the three weddings I went to last year had friends officiating that had gotten ordained on the internet. They went great! We were thinking of having a close friend of mine do ours. He''d need to get ordained and figure out what to do etc. He''s a great public speaker though. I''m just wondering if it''s better to hire an officiant or more meaningful having a friend do it. It seems friend over stranger is better but maybe the inexperience may potentially go badly. It would save us a good amt of money though that we could use elsewhere.