Who Will Join You Two in Love? -- Choosing an Officant as You Plan Your Wedding

Tulle. Matron. Vow. Weddings are filled with all kinds of
words that we just don't use in the rest of our lives. This is
part of what makes them special. Language has a way of telling
us things about a culture without the culture even realizing it.

Our language is telling us that weddings are special. They're a
unique experience in our culture and thus in our language.

“Officiant” gets my vote as the strangest word in wedding
planning. My Merriam Webster dictionary defines “officiant” as
“One who officiates at a religious rite.”

The world includes so many types of Officiants you can choose as
you plan your wedding, it can seem overwhelming at first. Pastor,
Rabbi, Roman Catholic priest, Bishop, Clergy, Justice of the
Peace, Close friend, or Wedding Judge. Any of these could play
the role of joining you and your beloved in matrimony.

The thing to keep in mind is that a lot of these options won't
apply to you. Very few brides will be choosing between a
Catholic Priest and a rabbi (sounds like the beginning to a bad
joke), although it can certainly happen, if you're conducting a
cross-denominational wedding.

Still, based on religious leaning (or lack thereof), you can
probably narrow your choice down to only 2-3 possible officiant
types. Unfortunately, that still leaves you with about 200
possible individual officiants in your local area (at least)!

You should "shop" for an officiant in much the same way you shop
for your other wedding vendors (florists, musicians, caterers,
etc.). You want to talk to people who have used this officiant,
to hear their opinions. You should have a set of questions to
ask each officiant, to gather information on just what they'll
bring to your ceremony. And you should judge each potential
officiant on more than just the facts of their answers to these
questions; you should also judge how you get along with them,
whether they seem to "click" with you and what you want from YOUR
wedding ceremony.

Wedding officiants have been known to ban certain pieces of music
and/or readings from a ceremony. They've been known to control
what pictures your photographer and videographer can take during
your ceremony. Officiants have been known to be rude to guests
and/or to the bride and groom, and (if you're really lucky) the
rude things the officiant says to people can be recorded on your
wedding video for all posterity. Won't that be fun to watch on your 25th anniversary?! (not!)

Wedding officiants have even been known to require that you vow
certain things! (For example, the "till death do us part" thing,
which is a crucial element of the wedding vows to me, personally,
but which friends of mine distinctly wanted to remove from their
wedding ceremony. They had to shop around to find an officiant
who would "allow" such a thing -- by which I of course mean they
had to shop around to find an officiant whom THEY would allow to
conduct their wedding, since my friends, as the marrying couple,
were obviously in charge.)

As with every other type of wedding vendor, some officiants can
come to believe that they're the wedding experts whose word is
gold, and you are just an irrelevant newbie. (In fact, officiants
can behave this way even more so than other vendors, because they
do play such a crucial role in the actually-getting-married part
of your wedding.) Keep in mind that while you may be a newbie,
you are in no way irrelevant at YOUR wedding. You can choose a
different officiant; don't let him make you think you can't.

An officiant acts as a band leader for your wedding ceremony.
He’s generally not involved in the reception (except possibly as
a guest), but he’s the boss and conductor of everything that
happens at the ceremony. However he's a boss you get to CHOOSE,
so choose one who is going to play his role by running things
exactly as you'd have them run. He'll run things because you
hired him to do so, so he'd best run them the way that you
yourself would run them if you weren't so busy being the relaxed
and happy bride.

The qualities you want to look for in your officiant are
basically the same ones you'd look for in any party "host." You
want him to be comfortable with his role, with public speaking,
and with getting a group of people to do what he wants, when he
wants them to. You want him to have experience in conducting
weddings, be a quick thinker and problem-solver in case of
emergency (or even just mildly unexpected turns of event, which
can feel like emergencies on your long-dreamed-of wedding day)
and you want him to have that certain charisma that makes people
glad to have come together to listen to him speak and to
participate (even just by watching) an event that he "hosted." A
lovable officiant equals a wedding that people love.

(c) All Rights Reserved -- Debbie MacGuffie

Article Source: http://www.bestweddingarticles.com

--Debbie MacGuffie is a professional writer and the co-author of "Don't Let Them Ruin Your Wedding," a new ebook that will reveal the simple steps to keep your wedding vendors from wasting thousands of dollars of your wedding budget. Stop Them From Ruining Your Wedding

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