In recent years a trend has become common among couples planning their weddings-the use of personal friends and family members to officiate ceremonies.  At first, this may seem like a good idea and is even occasionally promoted in bridal magazines and on the Internet. Unfortunately, many brides and grooms end up regretting this decision once their wedding day arrives.  In order for someone to conduct a beautiful and organized wedding ceremony, that person must have a specific amount of skill, knowledge and experience.

Your wedding officiant must have:

• The experience to organize and coordinate the dozens of details concerning your wedding ceremony. (Including the ability to run an organized rehearsal if necessary).
• Excellent public speaking and communication skills in order to convey the beautiful message of your ceremony to your invited family and friends.
• An extensive knowledge of ceremony styles, formats, options, placement, timing and flow.
• The necessary experience to stay cool, calm and collected when things ‘may not’ be going as planned. And the knowledge of “what to do” when things are “not” going as expected.
• The experience to effectively communicate with all of your other vendors-and to coordinate the ceremony with your DJ, photographer, florist and caterer-allowing everyone to work together and on the “same page” during the wedding ceremony.
• An extensive and detailed understanding of wedding licensing, legal matters, county documents and other important ‘paper work’ issues.

It takes years of training, study and experience to become a good wedding officiant.

Unfortunately, “inexperienced” friends and family members are just that-inexperienced.

However well intentioned, they often do not possess the knowledge, experience or skills necessary to perform the type of wedding ceremony that most brides and grooms want (and expect) on this very special day. Inexperienced friends and family members are often visibly nervous, uncomfortable and ultimately ‘unsure’ of what they are doing-leading to a wedding ceremony which is often ‘not very good.’ Keep in mind that all of this will be taking place in front of your closest friends and family members!

The person officiating your wedding will, simply put, “make” or “break” your ceremony-the centerpiece of your entire wedding day!

If you select an officiant who has years of experience and hundreds, if not thousands of weddings ‘under their belt,’ you will likely have a beautiful ceremony that is professional, organized and memorable in a positive way.

If, on the other hand, you select an officiant that does not have the necessary experience, skills or knowledge to conduct a beautiful and organized ceremony-you may end up wishing you had made a different choice. (Regardless of how special that person is in your life).

So choose your wedding officiant wisely, make sure they have the years of knowledge and experience that will lead to a beautiful and organized wedding ceremony.  You will only have one opportunity to perform this service, so select an officiant who is an experienced professional.

Many brides are opting out of church locations for their wedding ceremonies. Most reputable wedding reception sites now have locations to accommodate the wedding ceremony as well.

Five Benefits of having the same location for both the Wedding Ceremony and the Wedding Reception:

1. Money, Mula, Cash

No renting and paying for two facilities and coordinating the times. Many wedding facilities offer discounts or have packages that include space for both the ceremony and the wedding reception. Why spend the time, effort and money on two locations when it is not practical or necessary? Furthermore, depending on your faith, many churches these days are only allowing wedding ceremonies at certain specific unchangeable times throughout the day. So, if the only time you could get the church was 1:00p.m.and the reception time doesn’t start until 5:00p.m.your guests will have nothing to do in the interim. Attending 2 functions with a break in the middle is no longer viable or practical for most people. They are busy. I know, I know their love for you should be enough to celebrate a measly 12 hours with you on your most precious of days. Especially in light of all you have done for them!! But let’s face it, people these days are more fickle than ever, they will lose interest, get bored and get tired and it will be all on your most sacred of days. Furthermore, a little known fact in the weeding industry is that the longer the time is between your ceremony and reception the less people that will attend the reception. This means that although you could receive 150 RSVP’s and may have that many at the ceremony, the longer the wait until the reception the less people you will have attend. So, you could end up paying for a certain number of people at your reception (which typically is the most expensive portion of the event) only to have them not show up.

2. Driving without GPS

If you have guests from out of town who will be attending your wedding (or from around town for that matter who aren’t familiar with the area) you cut the possibility by half that they will get lost in transit. Traveling in unfamiliar territory is hard enough, the more you can do to make it convenient for your guests to travel the better. I know what you are thinking. You’re thinking this won’t be an issue because you will create little maps for your invitees. Maps that you will carefully have printed on perfectly colored cray paper that impeccably match the bride’s maid’s gowns all in a font that you had to pay extra for will ultimately end up being lost or thrown in the trash. You will spend the time and put in the hours to make your maps flawless. The reality is that no map is foolproof and even if it is, half your guests will forget to bring them.

3. No packing up all your bridal cargo

I am quite sure you have participated in or at least seen the mayhem that occurs when bride’s maids, flower girls, mothers-in-laws to be, grandmothers and the lot descend on a room to get ready for a wedding ceremony. Tornados better organize rooms than this hoard of female bridal accomplices. Packing all of this stuff after the ceremony in order to give up the room for the next hoard in line for the same room or to make a quick dash to the reception location after an underachieving photographer has taken triple the time he was allotted for your photos, is totally impractical. Full service ceremony and reception locations may not lessen the burden of clean up but they do free up the time to do it at the end of the festivities versus in the middle.

4. Decorating and tearing down two locations

The headaches of setting up the perfect location for your nuptials will only be magnified exponentially if you have to do it twice. Especially if one or both of your locations is, let’s just say, not quite up to your specific standards and vision prior to the decorations. Your bride’s maids and closest family will of course do their best to reconstruct the floral arrangements from the ceremony into the center pieces that you researched on line, and provided 8×10 photo glossies of, in their setup packets according to their ages and specific talents. However, the less that is expected of them, especially on the specific day, the better.

5. Unpredictable weather

This will assuredly not happen to you, but let’s just say for the sake of argument that the weather is not 72 degrees, sunny and cloudless on the day of your outside wedding like the farmers almanac said it would be 3.5 years ago when you consulted it. Let’s just say that it’s, oh I don’t know I’m just brainstorming here, maybe a little snowy or windy or rainy or cold or overcast or too hot or airplanes are doing flybys at the airport across the street that you were told was abandoned or imperfect in some other inconceivable way. All of this can be handled with little effort if you have a backup plan for your ceremony. Most if not all of the sites, including Stonebrook Manor, that offer both ceremonies and receptions have the means to accommodate you if the unpredictable should happen.

There are of course many other issues, complications and worries that can occur during the course of planning and having the perfect wedding day celebration. Especially, these days it is simply more economical and convenient to have the ceremony and reception at one location.