Sweetheart Weddings

We originally were booked with another reverend for over a year however something came up with the original reverend and she could not marry us. This happened 8 days before our wedding so needless to say we were stressed out. Rev. Christine was a good friend to our original Rev and took over our ceremony. I spoke with her on the phone and meet with her before the rehearsal dinner and she made me feel very comfortable. I have even the pickiest family members coming up to me saying that the wording and ceremony were so remarkable. IÂ’m so glad that she is the one who married us and I would not change a thing. She really knows what she is doing!!!

About 2-3 weeks before the date, she sent us a draft of the ceremony. At our initial consult and follow up emails I had given her some readings and made it clear to her that we wanted no mention of God in our ceremony. The draft she sent included her “usual” readings and still had God in it, so I made changed those things and sent it back to her within a few days (which was about 12-15 days before the wedding). I had also made a few minor wording changes to the vows.Myself and the BMs were about 10-15 mins late to the rehearsal, and she looked pissed off. We tried to stay lighthearted but at one point the BMs made a joke and started cracking up and she glared at them until they stopped. I made eye contact with Ana and rolled my eyes, but there was nothing either of us could really say.The day of the wedding, I got a call on my cell just after noon. She says “I’m reading over your vows and I think you meant for them to be the same, but yours and Greg’s are different. I told her yes, I wanted the words to be slightly different. She started arguing me about what she thinks I wanted it to say and I asked if I could call her back in a few minutes so I could look at the file on my laptop. She then says “well its too late to change anything, but I think you want this.” I said sternly “please just read the vows as I sent them to you, I don’t want any changes. I’m not even sure if she did or not b/c they were such minor changes, but I was really irked that she chose the day of to talk to me about it when she had had the final changes for 2 weeks.She walks into the theater 7 minutes before it is time to start. Her first words to DH are “what a stressful week.” I guess she got huffy with DH when he didn’t have the marriage license (we forgot it and someone was already deployed to go get it). The ceremony was ok, except that she said God 3 times. That ticked me off. We also didn’t get announced as “Mr. and Mrs.” for the first time because since she was so late, she didn’t have time to tell the bagpiper when to start the recessional so he started as soon as we turned around.

She was really bad at communicating with us. She was an hour late to the rehearsal. She put the wrong names in the ceremony she wrote for us. She called me at home and talked about her personal problems for an hour. She read from her book during the ceremony. She interrupted the receiving line so she could get paid. She upset, me, my husband, and my family. I wouldn't wish her on my worst enemy!