The Ceremony

                Each couple can get exactly what they want out of their wedding ceremony. Many officiates are flexible about how the ceremony is run and who is involved. Each person will have their own ideas for the ceremony but the bride and groom need to support each other and fight to get what they want at their own ceremony. The first step in the ceremony is picking someone to officiate.

               

Unfortunately, I do not have much experience in picking someone to officiate your wedding. My fiancée and I are members of the same church back home in Houston so it was an easy choice for us. We have the pastor at our church doing our ceremony and we did not even look at anyone else. However, the rest of my advice is dependent on if you want a wedding performed by a religious leader, a Justice of the Peace, or someone else you find that is legally allowed to perform the ceremony. However, I can offer a little advice based on other experiences I have had in searching for other people involved in the wedding.

First, meet with the person you want to marry you more than once before the ceremony. We are going to “Pre-Marital Counseling” with our pastor, which really is not as bad as it sounds. It is mostly a way for the pastor to get to know us as a couple and as individuals on a more personal basis. If you decide to go with someone that you have not met or know well, I would recommend you set up a few sessions to get to know each other (all three of you). If the person performing the ceremony knows you, they are able to deliver a more personal message instead of using a generic reading of the vows.

Also, during your sessions make sure that the person you chose is open to change and is willing to do what you want. There are some people out there that do things the way they want and it does not matter what the bride and groom want because they know what is right. Conduct a little research before you bring this up so you have some idea of whether you want your ceremony to be more traditional or more contemporary. We decided to have a couple different things happen during our ceremony and our pastor was encouraging of our taking ownership of what we want. We are having someone do a reading before the vows start and we are taking the Lord’s Supper (Communion) with our Best Man and Maid of Honor. We are very traditional people and it made sense for us to do the ceremony in a traditional way but we also are doing those couple of things to change it up. It is your ceremony so you need to do things that make you happy and remember it as a great start to your marriage.