Wedding Customs & Traditions Forum

How did you express what your officiant should say?

My fiancé and I have many opinions on what we want said and not said during the ceremony. We don't want to repeat any vows, I will not say "I do" to anything asking if I promise to be obedient, and I don't want to be introduced as "Mr. and Mrs. His Name". I'm still undecided on what I'll do about the name issue. My officiant is provided by my venue, and I probably won't meet him before the day of the ceremony. All my requests go through the coordinator who owns the venue. Should I type out my requests of what I would like done and list out what I want to make sure to avoid? The coordinator took notes on what I told her, but I'm still thinking that making my own notes might be best.

Re: How did you express what your officiant should say?

  • Our officiant sent us 3 options for the ceremony, and we chose one from those. During our meeting, he also asked if there was anything we didn't like, didn't want, did want, stuff he could incorporate from our lives, etc. 


    What did you think would happen if you walked up to a group of internet strangers and told them to get shoehorned by their lady doc?~StageManager14
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  • I wouldn't use an officiant I couldn't speak with before hand.  I would set up a meeting with him/her to discuss what you want.  Leaving "obey" is pretty standard these days.  We had a religious ceremony and the minister who performed it does not ask that of any bride.  The not repeating vows is a bit different and you don't want the officiant just falling back to the old standard. 
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  • I agree with Mysticl about not using an officiant I couldn't meet prior to the ceremony. 
    What did you think would happen if you walked up to a group of internet strangers and told them to get shoehorned by their lady doc?~StageManager14
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  • I thought that was a little strange too. It's not required to use this officiant. It is just something included in the cost of the location. I will talk to them to see if I can get his contact information.
  • When I meet with a couple, I give a few different ceremony plans for them to read through, then we pick things from them that they like.

    The couple I'll be meeting with Tuesday, want a fairly simple ceremony and to do their own vows. I'll show them the basic civil ceremony but also my own ceremony plan (only because my wedding comes before theirs) as well as a couple others I've done in case they want to add anything extra.

    I most definitely want my couples to get the ceremony THEY want. If they aren't comfortable talking to me about what they want/don't want, then I'm not the right person for their ceremony.
    ~*~June 21, 2014~*~


  • zitiqueen said:
    We got married in Las Vegas. The officiant came in to ask me before the ceremony and I said we're not churchy but if you want to throw in a simple prayer, that's cool, but the only thing I don't want to hear is Corinthians. I don't want to hear Corinthians. I DON'T WANT TO HEAR CORINTHIANS.

    Fucker did Corinthians.

    Well, you just reinforced my plan to put what I want in writing. That would piss me off.
  • I'd write it all out and give to the coordinator to pass on. Is there any way you can meet with the officiant beforehand? I created our entire ceremony so there's lot of specifics in there. 
  • I agree with PPs that you should try to meet with the officiant beforehand.  We aren't particularly religious, and so while we did book a minister we wanted to make sure he was okay with where we stood and wasn't going to make the ceremony into something that wasn't true to who we are.  This guy is pretty awesome, and he gave us an entire booklet of various readings and options for introductions etc. that we can pick from.  We can still incorporate any other readings or alternatives that we prefer, but it is SUPER helpful.  If they do a lot of ceremonies, I feel like the venue's officiant should be able to give you a draft to make comments on or something like that. 
  • Our officiant sent us a Word document (already - not getting married til September!) with several options for each portion of the ceremony. He asked us to indicate which pieces to include and exclude (i.e. if we want to open with a prayer or not, thank our parents or not, etc.) and could even go through line-by-line and make any modifications we wanted to phrasing.

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  • phiraphira member
    First Anniversary First Comment First Answer 5 Love Its
    Our officiant is my godmother, so we have met her already. We're not sure how things are going to work, but we'll either meet with her in person to plan, or do it over email. She's my super liberal progressive feminist fairy godmother, so I'm pretty sure that she has no plans to include any "obey" or gendered language in the ceremony.

    We're going to ask for no "repeat after me" stuff because it drives me nuts (like, I know it's a personal decision and some people love it or feel pretty neutral about it, but it just grates on me for some reason). I also want to be pronounced as something other than "husband and wife" (not sure how my partner feels about it, though), and I don't like "You may kiss the bride," so we'll probably just have "You may kiss."
    Anniversary
    now with ~* INCREASED SASSINESS *~
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  • A friend is getting ordained to perform our wedding, so I wrote the script. There are places for her to add her own stuff, and she is totally free to change the script as she sees fit, but everyone who has read our script so far has really loved it, FI and I feel it really captures our feelings for each other and on marriage.
    ~*~*~*~*~

  • phira said:
    Our officiant is my godmother, so we have met her already. We're not sure how things are going to work, but we'll either meet with her in person to plan, or do it over email. She's my super liberal progressive feminist fairy godmother, so I'm pretty sure that she has no plans to include any "obey" or gendered language in the ceremony.

    We're going to ask for no "repeat after me" stuff because it drives me nuts (like, I know it's a personal decision and some people love it or feel pretty neutral about it, but it just grates on me for some reason). I also want to be pronounced as something other than "husband and wife" (not sure how my partner feels about it, though), and I don't like "You may kiss the bride," so we'll probably just have "You may kiss."
    OMG! I thought I was the only one!!!!!!!!

    Also I would have a hard time having an Officiant that I didn't meet before hand.

  • My fiancé and I have many opinions on what we want said and not said during the ceremony. We don't want to repeat any vows, I will not say "I do" to anything asking if I promise to be obedient, and I don't want to be introduced as "Mr. and Mrs. His Name". I'm still undecided on what I'll do about the name issue. My officiant is provided by my venue, and I probably won't meet him before the day of the ceremony. All my requests go through the coordinator who owns the venue. Should I type out my requests of what I would like done and list out what I want to make sure to avoid? The coordinator took notes on what I told her, but I'm still thinking that making my own notes might be best.
    I think writing it out yourself is probably best. I would think the officiant would allow you to choose vows. Our pastor discouraged writing our own vows (his problem with them is that frequently, they are not serious enough or aren't actually vows) and provided about 15 different variations of the traditional "in sickness and in health, for richer for poorer," vows that the various couples he's married have used.  We chose the one we liked best, which did not include "obey."

    After writing out what you want, I would email it to him and then go over it with him whenever you meet him.
  • You definitely need to talk to your officiant because in order to be legally married- you do need to say vows. But they don't need to be anything derogatory.  These are ours, we're both saying the same thing:

    I, [name], take you, [name], / to be my partner in life. / I promise to walk by your side forever, / and to love, help, and encourage you / in all that you do. / I will take time to talk with you, / to listen to you, / and to care for you. / I will share your laughter and your tears / as your partner, lover, and best friend. / Everything I am and everything I have is yours / now and forevermore.

    Our officiant gave us a book of options, from there, we pieced together what we wanted. We met with him once and discussed. At that point he discussed little things to work in and general order of operations. After the meeting, I sent him the final draft of exactly what we wanted to happen.
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  • SBmini said:
    You definitely need to talk to your officiant because in order to be legally married- you do need to say vows. But they don't need to be anything derogatory.  These are ours, we're both saying the same thing:

    I, [name], take you, [name], / to be my partner in life. / I promise to walk by your side forever, / and to love, help, and encourage you / in all that you do. / I will take time to talk with you, / to listen to you, / and to care for you. / I will share your laughter and your tears / as your partner, lover, and best friend. / Everything I am and everything I have is yours / now and forevermore.

    Our officiant gave us a book of options, from there, we pieced together what we wanted. We met with him once and discussed. At that point he discussed little things to work in and general order of operations. After the meeting, I sent him the final draft of exactly what we wanted to happen.

    We will say "I do," to the vows we discuss with the officiant. We just don't want to say very much during the ceremony. I'm pretty sure I will still be married.
  • SBmini said:
    You definitely need to talk to your officiant because in order to be legally married- you do need to say vows.
    You don't say vows in Greek Orthodox weddings, and they're legal (provided you have the appropriate civil paperwork, of couse!)
  • SBmini said:
    You definitely need to talk to your officiant because in order to be legally married- you do need to say vows.
    You don't say vows in Greek Orthodox weddings, and they're legal (provided you have the appropriate civil paperwork, of couse!)

    Yeah I'm thinking you don't have to say vows, beyond agreeing to the commitment of marriage. I don't want to say very much during my ceremony.
  • Needing nows are not are sometimes dependent on the municipality/county/state you're getting married in. I was told I do not need any specific language or vows where I'm getting married, so we're opting to do an Irish handfasting in place of vows.
    ~*~*~*~*~

  • We met the officiant the day of the RD.  However we spoke and emailed each other for 10 months before the wedding.






    What differentiates an average host and a great host is anticipating unexpressed needs and wants of their guests.  Just because the want/need is not expressed, doesn't mean it wouldn't be appreciated. 
  • I typed out the entire ceremony & gave it to the officiant (DH's family friend & a local pastor) a couple months before the wedding.  Either I left it out or he skipped it, but I didn't get to say "I do"!  I didn't want to repeat vows, so I just went with, "Do you solumnly swear to....." , to be followed with "I do." 

    DH said his "I do.", then the officient immediately went into a prayer!  We did repeat a few lines during the ring exchange, but 20 years later I still tell DH I didn't promise him anything!  As long as I've got the marriage license recorded at the clerk's office, I'm good!  DH's grandmother confronted us at the reception & told us we had to go back upstairs so I could repeat my vows because we wouldn't really be married without that...

  • Kerigirl9Kerigirl9 member
    First Anniversary 5 Love Its First Comment Name Dropper
    edited May 2014

    You definitely want to talk to the officiant before the ceremony... get a feel for them and they can get a feel for you. Our officiant met with us before we hired her. Then she sent a 40 page document with all kinds of prayers, services, readings, etc. I went through and highlighted what I liked then gave it to FI to highlight what he likes... then we'll put it together.

     

    The person must have some "stock" options he/she can show you.

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  • I officiated my sister's wedding.  The two of us shared a google document and wrote our own wedding.  It's been a year now, so I don't remember details and just went to my google drive to look it up.  I did "you may now kiss each other" for the kiss.  And the "I do"s came at the very begining under Declaration of Intent while the Vows came at the very end before I declared them married.  They didn't want to 'repeat after me' either, so I typed up their vows in color and put them in page protectors in my binder, sideways for each of them, so that when I held out the binder by the spine they both could see what they were supposed to say.  Nobody could hear the groom say his portion, but it was cute to see his face and him trying to hold it together.  This is what we went with.  I stole it from the interwebs then we changed it to fit our situation, so feel free to steal and modify.
    Bride and Groom
    I A take you, K, to be my husband, I K take you, A, to be my wife, my constant friend and partner, and my love.
    I will work to create a bond of honesty, respect, and trust; one that withstands the tides of time and change, and grows along with us.
    I vow to honor and respect you for all that you are and will become, taking pride in who we are, both separately and together.
    I promise to challenge you, and to accept challenges from you.
    I will join with you and our community and try to create and maintain a world we all want to live in.
    Our home will be a sanctuary and a respite for us and for those whom we cherish.
    Together: Above all, I will give you my love freely and unconditionally.
    Together: I pledge this to you from the bottom of my heart, for all the days of our lives.
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