Hi all,
I am not sure if this is in the right spot and I dont really know if I am even asking for advice, more than anything I want to vent. I grew up in a small town in Indiana where I was very involved in my church (UCC). I was baptised there as a baby. My family moved to South Carolina my senior year of high school, I was there with them for a year and we tried out a whole bunch of different churches but they didnt end up settling on one until I went to college. In college I went to an occasional service but nothing constant. I now live in Houston, Texas with my fiance and no longer attend church. My first year here I tried to find a church, but I got frustrated and gave up, not an excuse, just painting the full picture. Now, 2 years later, my fiance and I are planning our wedding. We decided to do Austin as that is where he is from and his family still lives. We have been going along just fine with all the planning but we hit a massive road block when trying to find an officiant. As someone who grew up in a church, it suddenly hit me (i know, shouldnt have been a surprise) that I was going to be married by a stranger. My friance's parents dont have a church or a reverend in Austin in case you were curious. It just upset me so much and now I am just trying to figure out how to get past it. We could find a church in Houston and hopefully get to know the minister well enough to have him officiate our ceremony in another town in 10 months time, but I am not sure if we will find one that we have that connection with in time and/or if he would be willing to travel the 3 hrs to Austin for our wedding. I am debating tracking down my old reverend that baptised me and flying him from Indiana, I am debating moving the wedding location to be near my family's church. I keep telling myself its no big deal and I should just suck it up, no wedding is perfect, but it just makes me so sad to think that I am going to be married by a stranger. My mind is clearly all over the place. I guess I am just a mess right now and I just had absolutely NO idea I would feel this way until we started to look for an officiant. I honestly thought i would be perfectly fine with just any old officiant. So yeah, I dont know if I am looking even for a response but if anyone has any helpful ideas or advice or has been through this, please let me know.