Love. Live. Laugh. Wed.

Or at least - now it will be because we've chosen our officiant!

It was such a weight off of my shoulders to get this crossed off our to-do list. Now I know that no matter how things go on July 9th, and whether I get all of my overly-abitious DIY projects done or not, we'll be married. This is also a big deal for us because the details of our ceremony (which have yet to be completely hashed out) were creating a bit of friction between myself, my dear fiance, the future in-laws and my parents. It mostly came down to a "Catholic church ceremony" vs "an outdoor Justice of the Peace ceremony".

I wanted an outdoor, Justice of the Peace, relatively religion-less ceremony.

The future in-laws wanted a Catholic church ceremony.

My mom wanted me to be happy and have whatever I wanted, but really wanted a religious ceremony.

Sean wanted a religious church ceremony but was open to other ideas.

I never imagined having a church ceremony and always just assumed that we would get married at our venue and probably with a Justice of the Peace. He was raised (strictly) Catholic and I was raised (loosely) Methodist, but neither of us regularly attend church now or really "follow" any religion. One day Sean told me he had talked to his mom earlier that day and that she had been looking for Catholic churches in the area and offered to pay for the ceremony costs if we had it there. When I asked what he said to her, he said "I told her we'd think about it." I was speechless for a while. It wasn't that I was angry, but I was surprised. In my head this was all figured out already. (I think I've mentioned my lack of communication skills?)

After we talked about our ceremony options a little we decided that we would most likely get married at our reception venue but that we would decide on the type of officiant later. This pretty much rules out a Catholic ceremony as most churches don't allow or recognize ceremonies outside the church. After a weekend at home visiting our parents Sean told me that his mom brought up the subject of our ceremony again and that he had told her we weren't planning on a Catholic church ceremony and we'd probably get married at our venue. Then he proceeded to say that she took it pretty badly and said that our ceremony won't even matter, that no one would take it seriously and that we were just looking to have a party.

I'm not going to lie guys, that stung. A lot.

We're putting a lot of thought into our ceremony and planning that small part of our wedding means a lot to us. Sure, I'm excited to party the night away, but the ceremony? The part where we say our vows and actually get married? That's the good part.




After that, I took a ceremony planning hiatus. I was stressed at the thought of combining what everyone wanted or choosing who to disappoint. But when November came, I realized it was time for us to make a decision. Having an officiant is kind of important, you know? And then one day, it just came to me. What about the Pastor from the church I went to when I was a kid? We're not super close to him, but we're at least familiar, where a Justice of the Peace would likely be a stranger. It will be a religious ceremony. Not quite Catholic but not religion-less. See? Compromise!

So he marked the date on his calendar and with a few pre-marital counseling sessions, we should be good to go! I feel like a huge weight has been lifted and I think we've found the perfect officiant for us.

Did you have trouble finding an officiant or deciding what type of ceremony to have?