Weddingbee Blog

It took quite a while to decide who would marry us. We knew it wouldn’t be anyone affiliated with a religion, as we want a secular ceremony. Once we had made that decision, I completely stopped caring about this (extremely important) detail for months.

Finally, a friend mentioned how awesome it would be if someone we knew married us, since we had no other requirements of our officiant. I realized this would be amazing. We could have a truly personal ceremony, led by someone who has known us our entire relationship.

Thrilled with the idea, I talked it over with Mr. Elk who also seemed excited (though a little apprehensive at first). Mama Elk was a whole other story. For whatever reason, even though Mr Elk and I are mature enough to be GETTING MARRIED, our friends are not mature enough to marry us. Yes, there is no logic in this at all, I understand. Mama Elk really preferred a Justice of the Peace, and even threw out the idea of having one of her best friends marry us (who has never met Mr Elk).

Mr Elk and I were frustrated—we both felt like it was OUR wedding ceremony, and we wanted it to be personal for us, not her.
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Having grown up with a devoutly religious mother, the wedding scenes I imagined as a child were all inside the church I visited every Sunday. As my identity developed in my 20s, my relationship with that church evolved and I no longer felt compelled to get married in it. I moved away and was exposed to more belief systems as a result. I remember taking the “Belief-o-matic” quiz and reading a lot on ReligiousTolerance.org during that period and was surprised by some of what I learned. Meanwhile, Mr. Mink grew up going to church occasionally, but didn’t feel a connection to a particular sect as an adult.

When we started to talk about finding an officiant for our wedding, Mr. Mink suggested a friend of his who got ordained online a while back. At the time, I didn’t know the friend very well and the idea wasn’t all that appealing. I was much more hopeful that a wonderful neighbor who was serving as an interim pastor for a church in town would be part of our day.

Image from the Charlottesville Wedding Blog / Photo by Anne & Bill Holland of Holland Photo Arts

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A while back, I mentioned how our initial choice in officiant, Pastor Tom, didn’t work out because he already had another wedding scheduled. He was an ideal choice for several reasons—I’ve known him and his family since I was a baby, he’s a Lutheran pastor, he has a great sense of humor, he did my mom’s wedding last year, etc.—but alas, it was not meant to be.

I briefly panicked until my mom mentioned that her lifelong friend, Pastor Liz, could be another viable officiant candidate. While I don’t know her nearly as well as Pastor Tom, I was open to asking her to do our ceremony—at the time, having a pastor (who was willing to go light on or completely forgo the God speak) was important to me. Well, I thought it was. There was definitely a bit of fuzz between what I wanted and what I thought I wanted because of what I thought my parents wanted. Figure that one out, Sherlock.

So Pastor Liz and I emailed back and forth a bunch. She said she would be open to officiating the ceremony, and we even had a phone call (while Foxy was at work) that kick-started my mind to think about what I/we truly wanted our ceremony to be and what it would ultimately entail. While this was all very helpful and seemed to fit all my previous requirements, something still didn’t feel right. I thought I wanted a pastor, but…maybe I didn’t? Maybe a Justice of the Peace would be just fine…better, even.
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The one annoying thing about planning a wedding that will take place 3 hours away is figuring out when to meet up with vendors. Since we’ve had a long engagement we were able to space out a few trips to get this done. We also made really good choices from our research, so we didn’t have to go back and forth a bunch of times to find people we wanted to work with. One trip per vendor worked for us to find the right people to work with.

The one thing that has proved more difficult is scheduling a meeting with our Rabbi. Since we don’t belong to a temple in New York, we easily decided on using the Rabbi at Mr. Porcupine’s parents’ temple in Pennsylvania. He marked our date off, we met with him briefly early on into our planning, and he told us we wouldn’t need to meet again until much closer to the big day. But, after two more short trips down to Pennsylvania without being able to coordinate schedules, our Rabbi suggested we have a meeting via Skype.

So, we downloaded Skype and used it for the first time to talk with our Rabbi. For some reason I find this hilarious.
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As of early September, we still didn’t have an officiant. I know I should have gotten on this sooner, but with all the time I’ve had to plan, I got so used to putting things on the back burner wedding-wise that I just kind of…let it go.

A little back story first.

Both of my parents and my paternal grandfather are Lutheran pastors. One of the many questions I frequently get asked regarding the wedding is if I’m going to have my mom and/or dad officiate our wedding ceremony. From the get-go, my answer has always been a resounding HECK NO.

First off, the parentals are divorced and asking both of them do it would be dumb. Second, the parentals are divorced and asking just one of them to do it would be dumb. Third, and most importantly, I want my parents to actually enjoy the wedding, not work during it!

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For some reason I put off the search for an officiant for quite a long time, until it hit me that I was missing one of the most important vendors—the one involved in the reason that the entire wedding is taking place. We needed someone to marry us—but not just anyone.

Mr. Buck and I are both Christians, so it is very important to both of us to have a religious ceremony focused on our beliefs. Unfortunately, where we are getting married there were not many options. Our venue mainly had recommendations for judges, but we were looking for someone of faith to marry us. There are various pastors within the area, but I wanted something more than that. I was looking for someone that we could easily connect to.

In came the football coach.

I come from a town where high school football is huge. Think Kenny Chesney’s song, Boys of Fall.

{Image via Urban Country News}

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Heads up: this post is sort of piggy-backing on my second post.

The fact is, I am coming to terms with my religion right now, and Mr. Foxy is an athiest (not agnostic).

Getting married in a church just wouldn’t make any sense for either of us. Religion was a huge part of my childhood (and I am determind to make it a part of our future children’s, as well), but I am a different person now than I was then. I also wouldn’t feel right “making” Foxy get married in such a way that he’s uncomfortable with the whole thing…it just doesn’t make sense.

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Image via Chicago Marriage

OK, I think my title is a little over-dramatic because we never were technically without an officiant. But it certainly felt like it. Before I delve into the specifics of our situation, let me give a little background.

A very long time ago, I told you about how Mr. Parasol and I did premarital counseling at our church in New York before we even set a date or started thinking seriously about our wedding. Well, naturally once we set our date and started wedding planning, it seemed only logical to ask the pastor with whom we had done our marriage counseling to officiant. We were close to him, we respected his wisdom and guidance, and he knew us well as a couple.

And he would have been more than willing, but there was a snag:
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Ever since I saw this episode of Friends, I was certain of two things for my own wedding: I would walk down the aisle to a string-quartet version of “Everlong” by Foo Fighters, and I would have one of my close friends officiate. Ten years later, “Everlong” may not make the cut, but I’m still determined to have a friend officiant!

Joey marrying Monica and Chandler on Friends (Image via IMDB)

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Oh what a pickle! Mr. Cucumber Sandwich and I have two wedding officiants.  Some people are struggling to find one, and we have one too many!  It is kind of a funny story, really. So sit back and grab a glass of sangria, and I will tell you about how we ended up with two people officiating our wedding.

It all started with my parents’ marriage. My dad went to Catholic school and ended up becoming friends with one of his teachers who just so happened to be a priest (a very young priest, if you will—probably only three or four years older than my dad). When it came time for Mama and Papa Cucumber Sandwich to get married he asked his friend, the priest, to marry them. They didn’t get married in the Catholic church…scandal! But since they were friends, the priest agreed to do it for Papa Cucumber Sandwich.

Fast forward four years and this same friend/priest (friest, if you will) baptized me. Let’s get in the time machine once again to present day. The priest is working in D.C. and I have met him a couple of times over the course of my living here. Once Mr. Cucumber Sammie and I get engaged, I convince him that we MUST have the priest who married my parents officiate our wedding as well. Mr. Cucumber Sandwich agrees, and I set off to find the friest.

An email, a few phone messages, and a couple of months later and no reply from the friest. Nobody has any updated contact information for him and we think he left his “job.” Basically there is no way to track him down. Finally, in desperation, I call his “job” and see if they have any forwarding information. They tell me he has moved and can forward an email for me but can’t tell me his information.
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It is so easy to get wrapped up in the little details surrounding a wedding—things like centerpieces, what to use for a card box, what the invitations are going to look like, what our flower is girl going to carry, and whether I can make it.

And, if you are like me, you probably spent countless hours poring over pictures of venues, reading catering menus, and looking at the portfolios of different photographers and florists. How much do they charge, and is it above or below the average? How does it rank on a scale of importance for us?

In all of the searching for the details and the right vendor, it may be easy to overlook quite possibly the most important vendor of the day that you will hire—the person who will perform your marriage ceremony. After all, the main purpose for the day is to marry the person you love, and the rest is just the party to celebrate that marriage. If you are getting married in your church then this decision is probably pretty easy. If you are looking for a marriage commissioner, then, not so much.
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Step 1: Think about all the weddings you’ve been to and who their officiants were. See if you can poach one.

Step 2: Realize that most of the recent weddings you’ve been to have been officiated by friends of the couple.

Step 3: Think about your friends and who would do the best job.

Step 4: Realize that if you ask a friend to officiate, you will have to write the entire ceremony yourself as you’d feel too guilty asking them to do it.

Step 5: Wonder if you have the time or energy to put together an entire wedding ceremony, remembering that you want it to be special and meaningful to everyone in attendance and freaking yourself out at the thought of failing to do that.
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(And isn’t that good to know? But I digress.)

So with our venue saga at last resolved, I thought I’d take an opportunity to point out that I am not a constant drama llama.

Source

So right, onto a vendor we booked easily. Our officiant.

Now, I know so far this blog has been about paper flowers, craft supplies, and having an aisle to walk down. In fact, when I put it that way, I’m not at all proud of myself. Not even a little. I mean, yes…I want our wedding and subsequent party to be beautiful and memorable. But my single biggest priority, the one thing I’ve cared about above all others? Is the ceremony.
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As we approach the 100-day mark, we need to start hammering out some of the details—like the ceremony. You know, just the little thing that actually makes us married. Thankfully, we figured out who would be performing the ceremony at the beginning of our planning.

Who else thinks of this guy when you hear the phrase “wedding officiant”?

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So, you’ve got fifteen pages worth of inspiration for your ceremony and no idea what to do with it? Let me help.

This part of writing the ceremony was very overwhelming, confusing, and difficult for me. I had fifteen pages of random bits and pieces of ceremonies, and no idea how to organize it. This was the second time in this process that I spent a good ten minutes just staring at the computer screen, trying to use my Jedi mind powers to will it to do the work for me.

Unfortunately, my Jedi powers need some work, and the computer just stared back at me.

So, I had to actually do something. I started by taking my ceremony order and typing it out at the top of the document. I bolded all of the different areas and made the text bigger than everything else, so it’d be easy to spot.

Then came the fun part.
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