Officiant Recommendations?

mandapat21

I'm not sure if anyone can help with this, but I might as well ask...

Does anybody have an officiant they would recommend to us? Or how should we go about finding one, and asking them? 

Alternatively, does anyone know how the licensing process works? How long does it take, how much does it cost, etc? Maybe we can get a friend to be licensed.

Our Main Qualifications: Not preachy! not too expensive, good sense of humor 

Wedding Location: My dad's backyard near Downtown Las Vegas

My dad and step dad are lawyers. Both said they would try to talk to a judge, but nothing has come of that yet.

Neither I nor my fiancée are religious. His family is Catholic, while mine is LDS/ Mormon. I don't think we want someone from either of those faiths. 

My dad had a Unitarian Universalist at his 2nd wedding... I think he paid around $300... I'm considering asking someone from that church since it's non-denominational.

Thanks!

mrsfranklintobe

I was reading somewhere that a person can get licensed to marry someone for pretty cheap. Maybe if you have a close friend that know you both they could marry you? I have a friend that did it and did the cermony for his sister and her husband.

mandapat21

Yeah, that sounds like a great option, because then we would have someone we know as opposed to some stranger. But, we can't really think of who would like to do it. I guess we should just ask people we know who we'd like to do it! haha. I couldn't figure out how much time and money it would be to be licensed. Anybody know?

ebonyivory10

This is an XP from a post a few months ago:

Our officiant was excellent. He came with our package at Caesars, so I don't know the cost, but he does other ceremonies and he's affiliated with a church in Vegas.  He will do a civil or religious ceremony.  He was really nice and we both thought he was excellent.  We only met him briefly before the ceremony, but he had a great vibe and he was funny.

Rev. Brian Ross
http://www.churchofpraise.com/
702-813-8785

I don't have his email.

Edit: To add - we did not do a religious ceremony and he was fine with it, didn't try to change our minds or anything like that.

aegrish

CHeck out Scenic las vegas weddings (ScenicLasVegasWeddings.com) they do backyard/in suite weddings.  My friend used them for her ceremony at the strip sign and the minister was very good,.

mandapat21

Thanks to both of you  

robinpandnateh

We have been talking to a Pastor from Las Vegas Valley Bible Fellowship by the name of Doug Loman.  He seems very nice!  He said his fee is $200 and he does both civil and traditional vows.

The church has a website.  http://www.vbflv.org/

Hope this helps!

vegasgroom

"Not preachy! not too expensive, good sense of humor " sounds a lot like Rev Roland that Mandalay's chapel uses.  I know he'll do ceremonies not in their chapels as we've hired him for ours and we're not using their chapel, but we're still on the Mandalay grounds.  You can probably find some videos of ceremonies with him by searching mandalay's recent wedding weekends for videos:

https://webcasting.cashmanpro.com/mb/viewweddings.cfm

he is usually the one that does the chapel of the falls outside weddings.