It can be debilitating: the fear of making a mistake while you're officiating the ceremony and messing up the whole wedding. Why are you so worried about messing up? Because you're a good and decent person! This is not just some solo presentation - the kind where if you tank up there it's only on you! A wedding is all about the couple. With all the flowers and ties and grandmas and drapery, there's this sense that it's such an important occasion and if we screw this thing up, we're slapping a...
Category: Officiating Best Practices
Wedding Ceremony Reading Samples (And What To Do Instead!)
You're a wedding officiant or a couple looking for sample readings for your upcoming wedding ceremony. And you just want this part to be easy. In fact, I'm surprised you haven't just scrolled right down to look for sample readings already! (Spoiler alert: I haven't included any.) Basically, you just want to find a verse or a poem or a quote here on the Internet, think "Oh that's nice" about it, and copy and paste it into your ceremony. I'm going to save you the trouble: skip the sample wedding...
7 Steps to Responding Well to a Negative Review
I got my first-ever negative review this week. I'm at my Macbook writing a wedding love story, when "bing!" - in comes an email from Wedding Wire saying I've received a review from "Spencer." Right away, I'm a bit disoriented. Because I've never officiated a wedding for someone named Spencer. I open the email, and I'm met with the subject line: "Look elsewhere if you want someone who respects you as a customer and isn't only after your money." Um. That's the title of the review. It only goes...
5 Details to Consider for Ring Bearers and Flower Girls in the Processional
When we're talking about ring bearers and flowers girls coming down the aisle, the "when-do-they-enter" question is only half the conversation. We also need to consider how the kids are going to feel and how they might respond when their big moment comes. (For that other half of the conversation - my post on all the "when-do-they-enter" stuff - just click here.) As a professional officiant, I've seen plenty of kids - hundreds - nail it with flying colours. I've also seen kids sit down in the...
Ring Bearers and Flower Girls: When They Walk in the Processional
Weddings are a family event, and that means our wedding couple will often ask some little ones to walk as ring bearers and flower girls in the wedding processional. Over the past couple of weeks, we've covered how the officiant comes in and how the couple's parents come in. It's time to talk about the children. Ring bearers, flower girls, junior bridesmaids, junior groomsmen: how and when do we include all the kids in the processional order? It's a common question that couples ask me in our...
Seat the Parents: 4 Options for How and When They Enter in a Wedding Ceremony
In my wedding ceremony planning session with the wedding couple, I always ask, "Which parents will be attending the wedding?" (This is how I phrase it to allow for disinvited, estranged, or deceased parents to be omitted without too much discomfort for the couple.) Almost always, there will be at least one parent at the wedding. What do we do with the wedding couple's parent or parents? In a traditional wedding ceremony, it used to be a no-brainer: Dad walked daughter down the aisle. And even...
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