Weddingbee

I thought we had our officiant in the bag.

Early on in our wedding planning, Mr. Martini expressed that he had a specific person in mind when it came to who would preside over the ceremony. He became close with this person at the church he attended during college, and although it has been years since they’ve spoken, this man held a special place in Mr. Martini’s heart and he wanted to reconnect with him. Of course, I agreed.

Over the next few weeks Mr. Martini did give him a call, caught up on the last 10 years, and eventually met for dinner. Unfortunately when Mr. Martini popped the big question about whether he would be kind enough to preside over our ceremony, he found that he was not ordained and is currently serving as a counselor at his church.

We were sad that he could not marry us, but excited that he will be able to witness our marriage as a guest after losing touch for 10 years. But now we had another issue. Who was going to seal the deal for us?
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I am super stoked and doing jazz hands even! We just finalized the travel plans for one of our most important guests, our officiant, Reverend Helen.

When we started planning back in November we got really fixated on the reception. When it came time to talk about the ceremony planning, we were both pretty overwhelmed. All of the wedding books that I borrowed from the library were not giving me a clue on how to plan a wedding ceremony for two brides and my ever faithful friend, Google, was just overwhelming me.

One day in December, I mentioned to Mama Gingerbread that our big budget splurge item on our wedding wish list would be to bring Reverend Helen from California to officiate our wedding. We met Reverend Helen back in 2004 on the Marriage Equality Express, a cross country caravan that we went on with 40-something others. She was one of two Unitarian Universalist ministers on the trip. As we set out on our 8 day adventure, she spoke privately to our group about how she wanted to be with us in solidarity, but also that she knew that many LGBT people have been hurt by people in the name of religion and wanted to help to bring some healing to that. Seriously, who better to marry us than this woman?
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In Montana, you don’t need a minister. You don’t even need an officiant. Anyone can marry you… without any certification. I think that guy above looks like fun, but I’m pretty sure he’s unavailable.
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Thanks to Mrs. Eggplant’s post about making an appointment online to get our marriage license, we took care of that with the quickness and no hassle. For San Francisco, it’s $89 for the marriage license and $5 for the convenience fee to make an appointment online. So prior to leaving for my “Girls Gone Wild” in Vegas weekend, Mr. CB and I are gonna get semi-ficial with our nuptials. Now that’s done, what’s next? Our officiant.

We’re really honored that our friend accepted being such a big part of our wedding, and we couldn’t be happier because he was the only person we knew that we wanted to officiate us. Now getting him ordained was starting to prick my brain. I wasn’t sure which online ordaining sites were legit and what the process was, and the last thing I wanted to deal with was to not be officially married after going through with the big SHAbang.

So BAM! I found that you could go through the City of County Clerk and do a One Day Deputization! Can’t get more legit and less worrisome than that yeah?

Are you having a family member or friend perform your ceremony? How did they become ordained? Or anyone have personal experience with the one day deputization?

Planning an intercultural wedding can be a lot of fun. It’s really interesting to read up on Chinese traditions and learn more about Mr. Cream Puff’s culture. I really wanted to have a Jewish ceremony without squelching Mr. Cream Puff’s culture, which it turns out will not be too difficult (more on that later). There are a lot of questions to answer about how the ceremony will be run, who will say what, what traditions we will utilize and which we won’t bother with.

There was, however, never a question of who would marry us. Neither of us is religious, so I wasn’t too attached to the idea of having a rabbi marry us. Instead, Mr. Cream Puff and I hoped that our friend K would marry us. K is Mr. Cream Puff’s best friend, and they’ve known each other for nearly a decade. He had wonderful things to say about her, and when I met her, I saw why–she is AMAZING. She is seriously one of the kindest, funniest and most selfless people I’ve ever met. I loved her immediately. Luckily, she said she would be our officiant.
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Ahh, it’s good to be back! During my hiatus, I almost forgot how much I love contributing to Weddingbee! I figured it was time for a few choice vendor reviews, some of which might be helpful to Chicago-area brides. Let’s start with one of our most important vendors, our officiant Terry Brady, and the process we went through to create a ceremony that was truly “us”.

To be honest, Mr. E and I are not particularly religious people. So in looking for an officiant, our criteria was to find someone who we “clicked” with, who would allow us to personalize our ceremony… and who did not cost an arm and a leg. I’m sorry, but I just don’t understand how someone can charge $700-$800 for performing a 30 minute (or less) ceremony! I saw a positive recommendation for Terry Brady on the local Knot message board, gave him a call, and set up a meeting. Turns out, there was no need to look any further, we booked him the very day we met! Not only did we hit it off, but when he read me a sample of his ceremony, I got chills down my spine and tears in my eyes. (On a side note, we met in a hotel lobby where there happened to be a Furry Fandom convention going on and people dressed in animal costumes wandering all around us. It was… distracting to say the least).
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Finding an officiant was one of the last things on our list, which may be contrary to other couples, since many plan their wedding based on the availability of the officiant. Initially, we were hoping Mr. Canary’s aunt would officiate. She is a very spiritual person and has a very close relationship with Mr. Canary, but with all the hassles of getting the right documentation and paperwork in New York… it wasn’t worth it to stress out Mr. Canary’s aunt or us.

So we started another vendor search. This wasn’t as painful as I thought it would be since a lot of folks seem to want non-denominational ceremonies as well. What we did encounter was MASSIVE sticker shock. Prices for these services were all across the board.

I called up a few officiants and asked about their process and quotes. The thing that annoyed me the most was that many of them didn’t publish their prices on their sites (I think that’s all across the board in this industry). We’d get the spiel and then the price, which for many was close to $1,000! Maybe I’m naive, but I honestly did not want to spend more the $500. Neither Mr. C and I are religious and we knew we didn’t want a long ceremony (30 minutes, tops!) so how could we validate $1,000 for 30 minutes!
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…I call him “Dad.”

(What do you think — family resemblance?)

At a friend’s wedding we attended a few months ago, there was one absolutely touching moment in the ceremony when the groom’s mother got up to say a few words. Her emotion and pride were so evident that I don’t think there was a dry eye in the house.

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When we began planning the wedding, I was positive that we would hire an officiant, simply because it was one less thing we would have to worry about for the wedding. But a 16 month engagement gave us LOTS of time to change our mind. When I began searching for officiants, I began to worry about having a perfect stranger presiding over such an intimate part of our lives. My MOH’s mother graciously volunteered to marry us, which relieved the “stranger stress,” but provided us with a new set of challenges…how do we make it legal?

The first step to take when asking a friend or family member to preside over your wedding is to call your local county clerk and ask them if they recognize weddings presided over by online ordained ministers as legal. Also ask if there is any paperwork you need to file, as well as how soon before or after your wedding the paperwork needs to be filed with the county. Some states, such as Connecticut, Alabama, Virginia and Tennessee, DO NOT recognize, under any circumstances, online ordained ministers, and performing a wedding in such states could result in fines (not to mention the fact that your marriage is not legal). There are specific districts and/or counties outside of these four states that also do not recognize online ordinations, so PLEASE call your local county clerk before proceeding!

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My wedding officiant/pastor has never officiated a wedding before.

Yup, it’s true! And I couldn’t be more thrilled.

Originally, Mr. Eggplant and I asked the lead pastor at our church to officiate our wedding. He was already scheduled for another wedding on the same day as our nuptials, and coincidentally, in the same city also. The plan was to start our ceremony in the late afternoon and have our pastor wedding hop once he was done marrying the first couple. Well, there are so many uncontrollable variables involved in timing a wedding, that I didn’t feel great about our original plan. So a little over two months left until our big day, Mr. Eggplant and I decided to switch officiants.

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