Choosing Your Wedding Minister

So, you’re engaged. Congratulations! Now, what will you do? The first step is to determine your budget and start selecting your venue and vendors. Shop carefully and check testimonials. You don’t get married too often, so you want to be careful whom you choose to be a part of your day.

Since I’m a wedding minister, I’ll offer some words of advice when selecting a minister. There aren’t a lot of non-denominational ministers out there who are willing to perform weddings outside of their respective churches (and their rules). Guys like me are rare – mostly because without a church it’s hard to make a living doing this on a full-time basis. We don’t make much money and we don’t have big advertising budgets so it’s hard to find us – it’s the classic chicken and egg thing. A good national resource is http://www.gatheringguide.com, or you can simply use Google maps and search for “wedding minister” in the area where you will marry.

If you are marrying outside the church and are looking for a minister you have some distinct advantages, such as choosing whom you like and having complete control over what is said at your service. I did not have that luxury.  I got married by an old-fashioned minister who was about to retire. I knew he had no intention of letting me be a part of the words he chose to marry me and my wife – that’s not how those guys roll. Most ministers affiliated with a church will not give you the option of selecting your service much less altering or writing your own vows.

Independent ministers like me are happy to perform both religious and civil services that are selected and customized by the couples themselves. I do religious weddings, interfaith weddings and weddings that are completely secular in nature, especially in cases where a person of the Catholic faith is seeking to marry outside the church, as it is required. Some couples will even write all or part of their ceremony and then ask me to perform it, which I am happy to do. It makes for a more interesting day at the office for me. And, there are few things as lovely as a Zen Buddhist wedding or as unique as a Celtic service.

Hopefully your minister will be willing to take into account your special circumstances and will work with you to create a lovely service that fits your families and makes you happy. If you can’t meet with your minister, at least speak with him or her on the phone. You can tell a lot by a person’s voice.  There is a certain amount of meshing of personalities, so make sure you speak with your minister if possible.

Again, this is a one-shot deal so you want it to be right. I try to meet couples after hours and on weekends – much like a real estate agent’s hours. Often it is important to the couple that we meet, so I try to oblige them when I can. If you can meet, you should try to have your rough draft pulled together by the time you meet so you can have a productive meeting.

Here’s a piece of advice: you should not wait until the last minute to select your wedding minister. I book as much as a year and a half in advance for some of my spring weddings, so  you should book a minister as soon as you find the one you like. Every year a couple will dilly-dally and fail to contact me to let me know they want me and then their day and time will get taken by another couple.

Make sure your minister will be wearing something appropriate for your service. You don’t want your minister to show up wearing flowery robes and peacock feathers when the groom and groomsmen are wearing black tuxes, for example.

Also, you want to make sure that the minister will stick to the text that you sign-off on before the service. I always love to tell the story told to me by a prospective couple who had attended a friend’s wedding where, to the dismay of everyone, the minister broke into an acapella version of “You are So Beautiful” as sung by Joe Cocker – directly to the bride, not like that was uncomfortable or anything…

-Rev. Sam
www.revsam.com

Coming soon! Vows: To Talk or Not to Talk.