Questions to Ask: Your Officiant

Critical to planning your perfect wedding is knowing what questions to ask the various vendors you hope to work with. In this series, we let the vendors themselves tell us what questions they think are most important and help them get to know you and your ideal wedding. In this installment, wedding officiant Christa Deane of Mountain High Weddings, who has been performing wedding and elopement ceremonies since 1998, gives us her thoughts on the most important things to ask your officiant.

When finding an officiant, you want to find someone you "click" with. Ideally, you should meet with them in person to get that feeling, but when you're planning a destination wedding you can't always do that. You can still get an idea or feel for them through email, phone, and Skype/Facetime - I do this with couples a lot.

Of course, availability and rates are some of the most frequent questions I get, but I also highly suggest asking:

What do you wear?

What happens if you fall ill on the day of our ceremony?

What qualifies you to sign the marriage license?

Do you conduct the rehearsal?

How long do you spend at the ceremony?

What if I want to include rituals or family traditions?

Do you care if we want to write our own vows? Do you go off script?

Do you have examples of previous ceremonies?

Do you take care of the paperwork after the ceremony?

Do you have a contract and how do I officially book you?

You also want to pay attention to the questions the officiant asks you. You want them to listen to you and really hear your thoughts on what are envisioning for your ceremony. Most people concentrate on the party - and rightly so - but in my opinion, it's important to remember why you are getting married in the first place. The ceremony is the one time you get to share with your loved ones the reasons you and your partner are choosing to be together. I truly enjoy helping you proclaim your love in an amazing ceremony, getting the celebration off to a wonderful start, and spreading that wedding buzz to everyone in the room!

For more information about Christa and her wedding officiant services, check out our vendor profile for Mountain High Weddings and her website too.