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*Inviting officiant?*

JMalettasJMalettas member
500 Comments 100 Love Its Second Anniversary First Answer
in Wedding Etiquette Forum
 Good afternoon ladies!

  Are you supposed to send an invite to, or invite your officiant to the dinner/reception? I don't know if this is something we're supposed to do or not? 

 Thanks! 

 *J
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Re: *Inviting officiant?*

  • harper0813harper0813 member
    500 Love Its 1000 Comments First Anniversary First Answer
    Is your officiant a pastor/priest/etc? Do you have a personal relationship with him/her? If so, it would be nice to invite him/her (and if you do, invite the SO too).

    If your relationship with your officiant is a vendor-client relationship, you are paying for the services and you do not have any personal relationship with him/her, there is no need to send an invite and he/she will likely decline anyway. An invitation to the rehearsal dinner, if the officiant will be present for the rehearsal, would be a nice thing to do.

    We hired a judge who we do not otherwise know to officiate our wedding. We are inviting him and his SO to the rehearsal dinner but not to the reception. Plus, my dad works in local politics and it might look bad to be wining and dining a local judge.
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  • tammym1001tammym1001 member
    500 Love Its 1000 Comments Second Anniversary 5 Answers
    We are inviting our priest, but he is the priest at our church so we actually would like to have him there as we have a relationship with him. If it was just someone we hired then we probably wouldn't have invited him to the reception.
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  • runpipparunrunpipparun member
    Eighth Anniversary 500 Comments 25 Love Its Name Dropper
    We are inviting our priest and her husband (Episcopalian). We did pre-marital counseling with her, she's super nice and smart, and it's her first marriage service. We see her in church all the time, and we love her. Plus, we want it to be memorable. They will come to both reception and rehearsal dinner.

    My brother had a rent-a-former-priest for his Catholic-feeling-but-not-really-Catholic wedding, and I don't think that he stayed for the reception. They didn't really have a relationship with him. He was more like a vendor. So, there's that.
    image
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  • TheBaysideBrideTheBaysideBride member
    250 Love Its 500 Comments First Anniversary

    Yes, we invited our minister and rabbi, their SOs, and are paying for rooms at the hotel. the minster lives about 30 mins away, so we offered him either a room or a car home, and he chose the car.

    Since they are both friends of ours and not taking any payment from us, we are donating $500 a piece to their charities (which i think is about what we would pay a church or temple if we were doing it there).

     

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  • Jen4948Jen4948 member
    Knottie Warrior 10000 Comments 500 Love Its 25 Answers
    I would send an invitation to the officiant and his/her SO.  You don't need to do it for any other vendor.
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  • Maggie0829Maggie0829 member
    Eighth Anniversary 10000 Comments 500 Love Its 25 Answers
    I would only invite the officiant and his SO (if he/she has one) if you know them on a personal level (like you would invite them to your wedding even if they weren't the officiant).  If you are just hiring them to do your ceremony then I really do not see them any different then any other vendor.

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  • TheBaysideBrideTheBaysideBride member
    250 Love Its 500 Comments First Anniversary
    I should note in our case - an interfaith wedding is a bizatch to coordinate!! They are both friends of ours and are being very flexible w/ the "rules." none of our reform rabbis at our temple would perform the ceremony w/ the minister, and because I haven't converted I really wanted both. So it's a little different than really hiring someone for the ceremony only. They are also spending a lot of time w/ us on what will be in the ceremony, etc.
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  • JMalettasJMalettas member
    500 Comments 100 Love Its Second Anniversary First Answer
     We don't have a personal relationship with our officiant, other than meeting with her since we booked the ceremony at this church & dealing with the ceremony process/marriage prep. She married my FI's brother/his wife, but we are not active members of her church. She's a very nice woman, and we both like her, but because we don't really know her beyond our wedding stuff, I wasn't sure if we had to invite her to the reception/dinner. She is also marrying another couple the same day as us, 4 hours before. With all of this said, what do you think would be the proper thing for me to do? 
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  • TheBaysideBrideTheBaysideBride member
    250 Love Its 500 Comments First Anniversary
    I would still invite her. Chances are decent she won't come, but she's part of the reason for the season, as they say :)
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  • JMalettasJMalettas member
    500 Comments 100 Love Its Second Anniversary First Answer
     This is what I was thinking Maggie0829. I didn't want to offend anyone, or do the wrong thing as far as not inviting her and her husband. I just wanted to know what the proper way to go about it was. If that meant we needed to invite them, then that's totally fine. If not, then we weren't going to bother, as we don't know them on a personal level outside our wedding right now. 
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  • JMalettasJMalettas member
    500 Comments 100 Love Its Second Anniversary First Answer
     That's also true BaysideBride. Especially with her officiating another wedding 4 hours before ours. I suppose sending an invite wouldn't hurt, in the sense that there's no way of offending her by inviting them. If she comes, fine, and if she doesn't, then fine too. I didn't really think of it that way! :)
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