Found our pastor!

Yayyy so exciting!! ask him how long ur ceremony is, if theres music and decor included or if you have to hire someone. ask if you need to chose your own songs and readings!

View quoted message That could be helpful for other but in my situation I’m not wanting any additional involvement in the ceremony. I would rather it just be us 2

Inquire about involvement with family and/or friends if they want to do a reading, poem or sing to be part of the service. Ask family members and your wedding party if anyone has something special they would like to do for you two or someone you want personally.

View quoted message Yeah FH and I are not in the least bit religious, and our officiant asked the same thing and we kind of did a side eye to each other lol which the officiant caught on to and said by all means if we didn't want that in the ceremony then he wouldn't do it. But FH's parent's and grandparents are religious at different levels, so we said we wouldn't make a big deal out of it either way as long as the overall ceremony wasn't religiously based. And when our officiant sent me what he had written up for us I cried, so I didn't see the need to change a thing in the end, and the little prayer will make FH's family happy so it's a win win.
Vows was another important question he asked about, I knew from the get-go that I wanted us to write our own, but I guess I hadn't mentioned that to FH, so that was a fun surprise for him😂 so just think and talk about that with your FH and be sure to talk about what kind of feel you want to go for. You don't want his to be overly playful or fun while yours are more sentimental and profound. But your officiant can also help with wording and overall flow if you feel stuck on them.

View quoted message That is super helpful!! Something similar happened to us on our phone call... he asked if we mind if he prayed for us as a couple and we both were just like “uh we never thought of it” - neither of us are particularly Christian so we had to discuss! 😅

FH and I felt so unprepared when we first met our officiant 😅 he asked us so many things about how we saw the ceremony happening that we hadn't even thought of, but were like "duh, why didn't we think about that?" The main things were whether or not we wanted a non-religious ceremony vs religious, how did I see myself coming down the aisle (with or without a parent), was there anything specific we wanted to add to the ceremony (sand ceremony, ring warming ceremony etc). Then we also talked about the order of things and he helped us plan out how things would flow best based on what we wanted to incorporate. Then there were more personal questions, like how did we meet, when did we know each other was the one, what makes us special to the other person. The first meeting was just trying to get to know us as a couple basically so that he could start writing an outline for a ceremony that fit us.