The “WHY” of your wedding day. The day is all about celebrating your love for each other and making a lifelong commitment to your partner and your life together.

The dress, flowers, cake, meal, décor, photography, entertainment, and money spent are all materialistic secondary items of the event which is exchanging promises and vows with that person you have chosen to marry and spend the rest of your life with. Keep this in the forefront it is the “WHY”.

Especially when you feel a little crazy, don’t worry it happens to most of us. Keep your eye on the prize that is why you are hosting the wedding!

Let’s get into selecting your Wedding Officiant and what they do, how you can interview an officiant to help you ensure you’re choosing the right person for the job and how to guide a conversation with your officiant to build a ceremony that is meaningful to you and your fiancé as a couple.

What are some of the options you have?

If you are a religious couple you can be married in a church of course and can find information about this from your church or the parish of your choosing by reaching out to them.

If you are a religious couple and do not want to be married in a church you can speak to your reverend, pastor or preacher about the options you have as a couple outside of the church and them performing the ceremony.

Another option is hiring a professional officiant for those that do not want to be married in a church or by a religious celebrant such as a pastor, reverend or priest.

With this option, there are many types of officiants from conservative, bold, religious, non-religious, non-denominational meaning they are religious however not to any one religion.

Or you could have a family member, loved one or a friend perform the ceremony for you. Depending on the state you live in this could be possible for a small fee and a certificate is issued by your state or county that empowers that person to declare the two of you married in front of witnesses.

Most of what I am going to talk about in this podcast will be covered if you select to be married in a church or by a Pastor, reverend or priest. For those who have decided on the option to use an officiant the following information will be very useful.

You should meet up front with the officiant you are thinking about performing your ceremony. Chat about what you want from your ceremony and what you don’t want. This is very important for the officiant to know. Then have them walk through their process and mutually decide if you fit together. It is very important that they want to celebrate you and that you want to have them be your voice.

The officiant should have a questionnaire or spend time gathering information separately from each of you about your relationship and each other.  This is a lot of fun when the officiant shares the information with the both of you.

The next step is putting together all the pieces. How do you want to do the vows, the rings, readings, quotes, traditions and different ideas you can do. For the non-traditional and non-religious couples, this opens many different ideas and options that can fit you both completely. Keep in mind that not all ideas or options will fit every officiant. Most of all you need to feel comfortable with your officiant and vendors.

Finding an officiant, you feel comfortable with is so very important. You won’t find this by just looking at a webpage or bridal page and picking the most inexpensive one.

Meet them in person!

The ceremony is the WHY! It’s the why of the wedding, everything else is the what and the how. This is the reason you and every one of your guests are there. The reception is the after party for fellowship and celebration of the WHY.

The officiant may only be there for 20 to 30 minutes in front of your guests but they are the core of what you’re doing. People don’t see the preparation time you spent with the officiant and many times feel they are not as much of a contributor compared to the caterer or the photographer. This could not be further from the truth. The reality is you are working together for months.

Put a lot of thought and discuss together who your officiant should be and make sure you meet with them in person!

Remember your officiant is your voice as a couple and will be there with you helping to celebrate the history of your relationship and be part of those first moments of your life together as husband and wife or partners.

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