What to expect/ask an officiant?

View quoted message Thanks for sharing Sabrina. I like the thought of the 25yrs milestone for the wine box to involve the rest of the family!

Our Reverend sent us over different options (Catholic ceremony or non). We have to choose between a few and then customize from there! Since we are skipping the Catholic aspects (candle, wine, prayer), we are only having the end of our vows (after we say our own) be Catholic and the rest is up to us! It will be a short 20-25 minute ceremony.
If there is something that you would like to add, such as a wine letter box (a bottle of wine and a letter from each partner that's hammered down to seal the box, to reopen at a specific anniversary of your choosing - we want to do 25 years so our kids can be a part of it - or if you feel like calling it quits to remind you of your love), ask if they have experience in doing them.
Good luck!

View quoted message These are interesting points, thanks for sharing!

You can inquire about your Officiant's direction of the service and information available to work to your ceremony way. Some Officiants are civil meaning they don't mention any word or god/bless or anything related to that affect. Its good to ask what time and how long it would take for the whole service. They may even give you the choice of saying your own vows or going with the ones they follow. Cultural requests will vary if they accept to add though step aside when done so they are aware to not be included because of their license.

View quoted message These are great tips! It's true they're the experts and have done this many times. Somehow I have a feeling that 30mins for the ceremony will fly by and would like to make them meaningful. I appreciate your input on this

View quoted message Great ideas, thank you!

Your officiant will probably lead the meeting since they're the expert in this. Ours basically went through how she conducts a typical ceremony and gave us options for each stage of it. She also wanted to ensure we were a good fit since my husband knew her pretty well, but I didn't and you want to make sure you're happy with whoever is marrying you. But it's good to think about general things that you want to happen or not to happen to bring up.

We didn't go into our meeting with our officiant super prepared but we knew a few things we wanted to cover: names and pronunciations, what to call us when we're married (i.e. no Mr and Mrs but husband and wife is fine), ideal ceremony length, standard vows vs writing our own, etc.

You can also ask them how they tend to structure their ceremonies so you get an idea of how it'll play out. Try looking them up on YouTube as some people may have uploaded their ceremony online and you can see how they play off a room/read off a crowd.

View quoted message Thank you for this pointers Michelle! They help a lot, especially the names and what we want to be called afterwards.

My husband and I were super unprepared when we met with our officiant, luckily she was super great and helped us figure out what we wanted.

Somethings to keep in mind that might help are:

Is there any kind of reading or announcement you would like your officiant to make? (unplugged ceremony? Tribute to lost loved ones?)

Are you writing your own vows or doing the standard ones?

Any kind of additional ceremony you would like to have like a wine box ceremony or sand ceremony?

Make sure they know how to pronounce your names and what you'd like to be introduced as at the end of the ceremony.

Hope that helps!