Wedding Help!!!

[helenabear]

I have a small problem. My sister (and I pray she doesn't see this) is getting married in a two months and the person who was supposed to perform the ceremony bombed out on them w/o a replacement My sister doesn't know this yet as she would absolutely FREAK and I have no clue at all where to begin to help find an officiant to do this. I got married in the Catholic Church and they can't help since this is not a Catholic wedding.

So how did you pick who was going to marry you?? Any ideas would be truly wonderful!!! Thanks

 

[Sonya]

Is she getting married in a church? Is it this churches pastor that backed out or is there another with that church?

 

[Cthia]

We got married by the Justice of the Peace. We found them in the yellow pages of all places. We lucked out and had a guy that does some work for the company I work for. (Small World) They come to where ever you want them to. Some of them you meet before the ceremony others just show up on the day. But it is an otion if you want may want to try. I guess it depends on what kind of ceremony you are looking for. But you do need to call ASAP most people are getting booked.

 

[helenabear]

Unfortunatley this is not a church ceremony. We had a judge who was going to do it for us (friend of the family) and they married my brother. They backed out and gave no back up for us. She will be getting married at the Franklin Park Conservatory and while they do weddings there, they don't offer much help.

Thanks Cthia, I will check the phone book! Not sure how much we will care at this point. We realize we might not have near as much luck given the wedding is only 2 months away.

 

[December99]

Elaine - also try calling the County Clerk's office. They should be able to help with a list of judge's that are qualified as Justice of the Peace's (I don't know if that's correct grammer but that's the best way I could word it )

Just a thought!

 

[becka]

WOW! I am sorry but I know how that feels because we had the same type of thing happen to us but in our case it was our regular pastor who LIED to us about why he was backing out of the ceremony just 2 months before!

We were using our campus pastor since we were getting married in the campus chapel and we had been attending services there since our freshman year. We reserved the church and the pastor 10 months prior to the wedding. We went to pre-marital counseling, etc. and everything with our pastor and really thought everything would be fine.

Back in December (6 months before the wedding) my RA had told me that the pastor's office was looking to put a mission trip together to go to one of the islands in the Carribean starting just a few weeks after school ended. It was not being publicized yet and only a handful of people even knew it was in the works. I was not too worried because we already had the committment from the pastor and figured they were probably leaving after our wedding.

Well in late MARCH the pastor calls me up on the Friday afternoon before spring break and tells me that this opportunity for a mission trip "just came up yesterday" and he thought about it last night and he really feels that it is more important to go on this mission than to officiate our wedding!!!! I was in such shock and I could not believe that he lied to me. To top it off he was no help in getting a replacement.

We talked to a few professors from the theology department to see if one of them could marry us but with just two months notice for a wedding on Memorial Day weekend we did not have much luck. Thankfully our Biblical Theology & Ethics professor knew a pastor at a church in a little town about 20 miles away that he thought might be available. We were able to meet with him and he very graciously agreed to perform the ceremony and since we had already been through pre-marital counseling, etc. he agreed to not make us do it all over with him. We met with him maybe twice before the wedding to discuss a few details and in the end it worked out fine but I was a little disappointed that someone who did not know us at all was the one to marry us. If we had 6 months notice I am sure we could have had on of our theology professors perform the ceremony and that would have been great.

 

[Carl the Bartender]

When my sister got married, she got some sort of one-day pass that let anybody she wanted officiate. She chose my father. It was really cool. This was in Boston, I don't know if it's allowed everywhere, but if it is, maybe your sister would like to choose someone to do that.

 

[RUDisney]

Nothing like adding stress to an already stressful situation.

I had the caterer cancel my wedding 3 months before our wedding, and one month before my shower that was also to be at the same restaurant. The caterer is my DH's aunt. Long story... Anyway, we scrambled to find someplace to host the reception and, as luck would have it, the only place that was available was a private country club of which one of DH's uncles is a member. He sponsored us and I had the fairytale wedding of my dreams.

Everything works out in the end. I'd definitely go through the clerks office or the phone book. You'll find someone and the ceremony will be no less meaningful.

 

[doxdogy]

Check this website, http://www.theknot.com. Go to vendor listings and then down to the state where the ceremony is going to be held. They should have some officiants listed.

 

[mhopset]

Elaine,

When I seen your name on this thread I thought. Wedding, you mean Elaine and Luis have been shacking up all this time?

 

[JAP]

Elaine I just found the following:

Mobile Minister
Travels anywhere in Ohio
www.GetMarriedOhio.com
(614) 263-9911

Good luck!

Jen

 

[helenabear]

Thanks all for the suggestions! I sent these off to my dad who is taking care of this and we think we will be able to find someone who my sister will approve of. So hopefully tonight we will have a good replacement for her (or a few for her to choose from) so she won't flip out too much. Again thanks to all who gave me suggestions, I really do appreciate it!

Oh and I swear if I have any more questions with my sister's wedding I will be sure to put "Wedding Help NOT MINE!!!" in the title Tony, you weren't the only one who had similar thoughts

 

[Fire14]

I was just thinking you were trying to help me with my bridesmaid shoe delemia LOL.

 

[Serena]

We had a lawyer that had judges priviledges. She married us in my mom and dad's yard.