Helpful Questions to Hire a Las Vegas Wedding Officiant
Get help hiring a Las Vegas wedding officiant
So you two have decided to tie the knot and now you are approaching the big event. It is time for the big decisions to be made.
If you are not planning on using your own wedding officiant you know, you may need to interview a potential Las Vegas wedding officiant you don’t know. This might leave you feeling apprehensive, left scratching your head figuring out where to start.
Below are some tips on how to select the Las Vegas officiant that will make your wedding just the way you mean it to be.
Whoever you choose should offer the option to meet with you or at least have a phone consultation before your wedding.
Sometimes it’s not an option to meet your wedding officiant before the wedding day. That ends up being a common experience in Vegas because of the nature of the city and dynamics of scheduling a wedding in Las Vegas.
A meeting to talk about the ceremony will be beneficial but if you are in a situation where you can’t meet with the Las Vegas wedding officiant consider a phone consultation or a Skype meeting. A professional officiant will be able to offer you useful tools to help you along and keep in touch with you during the wedding planning process as well.
If you do decide to meet and have the time your fiance should be at this meeting as well. This article gives you useful directions and tips to help you and your fiance think through the important questions to ask your officiant or Las Vegas Minister.
Come prepared to ask questions and talk to your fiance beforehand. This will help you to have an understanding of the common questions you both have and what is most important to you.
I am passing along my experience to you. Below are some questions I have found most couples have asked me:
1. Are you legally licensed to perform a marriage at the current location?
2.What are the options for customizing a ceremony? What is the process?
3. How much do you charge? What services does this include?
4. How much freedom are the bride and groom allowed to do what they want to do in the ceremony?
5. What interested you in doing this work? Hong long have you been a wedding officiant?
6. How many weddings do you do in a day?
7. Do you have a plan B if you are not able to be at the wedding?
When the Las Vegas wedding officiant asks about your ceremony, here are some things you can be prepared to talk about that might be helpful to you:
• What is the name of the location and address where the ceremony will take place?
• How many quests do you expect at the ceremony?
• How many people are in the wedding party (any children)?
• Your music selection for the procession and recession?
• Traditions you and your fiance don’t like? Things that you do like?
• Your views on marriage vows – and if you will write your own vows or do something traditional?
• How long do you want the ceremony to last?
• Any considerations you want to make regarding parents’ expectations?
• Any ethnic traditions or religious traditions you need or want to include in the ceremony?
• Any ideas you may have gotten from other weddings?
The ceremony is the most meaningful part of the service
Naturally, if you have been going to a certain church for a very long time it is only customary that you use your current pastor or clergy person to perform the service for your ceremony. This is almost a must if both of you have grown up in the same church and you know the minister at the church personally. The minister may then incorporate something personal and private that they know about you into the ceremony.
Click this Las Vegas bridal resource to learn more about Las Vegas wedding ceremony planning.
Ask your officiant if they provide a questionnaire:
Some officiants will provide a method to get to know you more personally and make your ceremony unique. For instance, I offer questions that help the couple think about their relationship such as when did you know you wanted to be together forever, among others. This method will help your officiant to tailor and customize the ceremony to your specific love story and relationship.
To view a powerful Las Vegas ceremony resource, visit my article and learn how to write your wedding vows here.
Ceremony choices available? Does the Vegas officiant have a collection of ceremonies to choose from? I have been performing and creating wedding ceremonies since 1996. In that time I have collected an archive of different and unique ceremony options for couples to choose from. It’s not always necessary to have a long ceremony to make it unique and meaningful. In fact, many couples prefer a shorter ceremony of 10 minutes because they are having an outdoor Vegas wedding and it can be hot in Vegas.
View this article I wrote about 5 popular unity wedding ceremonies you may choose from click here to view the description of these Las Vegas ceremony choices.
There are many wedding officiants in Las Vegas that will travel to your location and provide mobile wedding services. It is best to be clear about your expectations when you set out to interview your intended officiant. Will you be needing a pre-consultation? Will you be needing the officiant to organize and perform a wedding rehearsal for you? Hiring an officiant that has experience in these areas is of utmost importance.
Look over this helpful Las Vegas DIY wedding rehearsal wedding article we created. It gives you a very useful ceremony resource to help you understand what the rehearsal will entail and what questions to ask the officiant who will be guiding you in your rehearsal.
A wedding officiant contract option:
How much should you pay a wedding officiant? Ultimately to answer this question it is best to consider the following elements:
- Will you be needing a pre-consultation? If so, it is only fair to give a reasonable compensation for their time spent with you and traveling to meet you.
- Will they be customizing your ceremony? When customization is done, it takes extra time and professionalism to create a unique ceremony for you. Typically an officiant will charge anywhere from $50 – $100 extra to customize a service for you.
- Will you be needing a rehearsal? Rehearsals take expertise and knowledge to perform. There are many elements involved. The wedding officiant you choose should have experience helping you prepare and the ability to pull it together for you. Typically, the extra time helping you plan, to include travel time is anywhere from $50 to $100 depending on how far they have to travel and if it’s done right before the ceremony on the same day or the day before the wedding, for example.
Considering your relatives’ wishes:
This is a very important day in both of your lives but you may also want to take into consideration the feelings of your parents and the grandparents. They want everything to be perfect too. This day is the day where they get to show off their daughter or son and their new daughter in law or new son in law. People will come from miles and miles away just to get a glimpse of the bride and groom. Consider it to be a status symbol for the family and therefore it does matter how it is presented.
What is the next step to confirm? If you liked the person you interviewed, what is the next step?
You will probably need to put a deposit down to reserve their services.
If you do decide to hire someone you interviewed, it is a professional courtesy to inform the other officiants you might have also interviewed you made a decision. Using the email for this is fine. Many people don’t do this but it is a very thoughtful and nice gesture.