Officiant Issues

jash009

Hi ladies,
Its been a while since i've posted, but I need some opinions!

We booked our officiant over a year ago and tentaively told him our ceremony would be at 5pm.  Over the course of the year we changed our ceremony to 4pm.  I checked with the venue to OK this and went ahead and printed and sent out our invites. 
Only last week, did I realize that we did not let our officiant know about the time change... and low and behold, he has another wedding booked for 4pm that day and says the earliest ceremony he could host for us would be at 4:45pm.

My FI has suggested having a mini-cockatil reception prior to the ceremony and thinks it might be fun for the guests.  My concern is this: if he has another ceremony AT 4PM - about 10 minutes away from our venue, that's cutting it really close to get to our venue, meet up with us before the ceremony and get started for 4:45, that seems to good to be true. 

Our only other option is to lose our $100 deposit and find someone new that has availability 6 weeks from now.  I'm leaning towards this option, because I just cannot believe that this guy is planning on doing two weddings within an hour.  I will be totally at the mercy of this other couple, I mean what if the bride is late or their ceremony runs long?

Any opinions would be really helpful!  I'm freaking out a little bit and so mad at myself for letting this happen!

futuremrsdavies

I don't mean to freak you out more, but I wouldn't feel comfortable with this.  I know this man is a professional and probably does this all the time.  i'm sure he wouldn't have booked both if he couldn't do both, but if it weren't for bad luck, i'd have no luck at all, and this would be WAY too risky for me.

If your piece of mind is worth losing the deposit, I say do it. 

rardito

I would definitely book someone else.  One wedding I went to started an entire hour late, what if that happened to the one before you?

kmac821

Another vote for booking someone else! Peace of mind is worth that much, especially since you want to start the night off on the right foot!

em01092

Another vote for someone else. So sorry you're facing this! 

jash009

Thanks all, I really appreciate your input, its just so hard to keep a clear head and make this decision so close to the wedding and when we feel like we're putting out money all over the place right now! Ive made contacts with a couple of other officiants and hope to solidify someone new asap! Thanks ladies!

blgrout

I would definitely book someone else.  Sorry that you're dealing with this.  I actually asked our officiant if he was planning on doing any other weddings on our date because of this issue, because I know that if he was doing another wedding before ours, it would probably start/run late and that would suck for us, so that was important to me.  I just don't get trying to do two weddings in 2 hours, but I'm not a professional officiant.

Hope you get someone soon!

inhisname2010

I'm with the PP's. Definitely have a backup plan. That is cutting it really close.

punkie1019

ditto! Find someone else.