WEDDING CEREMONY PRO INDIANA
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The Wedding Industry Vs. Your Wedding Ceremony

7/27/2018

 
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The Wedding Industry Vs. Your Wedding Ceremony

As a professional wedding officiant, I am part of the wedding industry - kind of.  I pay for advertisements on wedding websites and I am an important part of your wedding day, but often, the wedding officiant is not considered a vendor. Why is this?  You priest, pastor, minister or rabbi, generally is not a wedding vendor, they are a religious leaders. You may have a wedding planner or day of event coordinator that organizes everything.  They may tell everyone what to do, except your minister. Your minister is in charge of your wedding ceremony and you are going to have to work around them, respectfully. Your religious ceremony is not really part of the wedding industry because the wedding industry has no power over your religion.  Even if you are not getting married in a place of worship, do you want your wedding ceremony to be part of the wedding industry?

I’m a non-denominational minister, without a congregation, working as a professional wedding officiant. I’m qualified to legally marry you in Indiana, where I live and work. I will perform any sort of ceremony you want and do just about anything you like during your wedding. I am a wedding vendor, but that doesn’t mean that your wedding ceremony should be molded by a commercialized industry.  

Weddings are a huge business! The wedding industry is an advertising powerhouse. If you are engaged, dreaming about your wedding, or even just gathering information before attending a wedding, I’m sure your news feeds are now full of advertisements and listicles about weddings.  You put one wedding topic into your search engine and now, you are completely bombarded with all things wedding.


What is your wedding?  Think about it. I performed a wedding for couple that were just having a wedding ceremony.  It wasn’t an elopement. They rented a gazebo and chairs, they had a friend who brought their DJ equipment.  We performed a short ceremony, enjoyed each other’s company for a while and then went home. No reception. They were a lovely and loving family.  I’d married other family members that were in attendance with a quick elopement, but this couple wanted a ceremony with family and friends, the white dress, the hair and makeup, the rented tux, their own exchange of vows and prayers and blessings, but no reception.  It was about their ceremony.

On the other hand, it’s not always about the ceremony.  A few years ago, I married a couple because they were planning an AMAZING reception and needed a ceremony to kick it off.  The bride admitted she was definitely more interested in her dress then the ceremony, but the groom wanted a wedding ceremony, with his nephew as a ring bearer and as many traditions they could agree upon.  Obviously, the ceremony had no real bearing on the rest of their lives and long term relationship. It was just part of the day. They even went on to say that since they had to have a ceremony they decided to hire me because I am so different and would perform a “different ceremony” as in, really short, no sermon, no communion.  I was a spectacular event! I spent time before the wedding talking with the wedding planner, who said she may plan wedding like this 6 times a year, as such lavish, expensive weddings are rare. The decor, the venu, the live band, and everything, right down to the wedding favors were amazing. It was a doctor marrying a pharmacist and they had pill bottles - prescribed but the groom and filled by the bride- filled with candy as their wedding favors.  The guest list was not just colleagues of the bride and groom but of their parents as well as a large group of family and friends. It was really quite a social event. The occasion was the wedding, the focus was the party. It was all the spectacular wedding magic money could buy. 

What is your wedding ceremony to you?  There is no right or wrong answer.  Maybe it really is just a perfunctory part of the day or, maybe it’s a very special part of an altogether special day.  Some people don’t care what happens, just as long as they are married in the end. Some fathers and daughters have dreamed of walking down the aisle together and hearing the words “who gives this woman to be married?”  They cry just thinking about it. Your parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles may have been dreaming of this day for you and with you since the day you were born. Your grandparents may be holding on and living for this day, literally.  Maybe the two of you have been planning your vows since the day you met and can’t wait for the moment to share them. Maybe you have been anxiously awaiting your own version on the Bachelor-inspired Rose Ceremony. Maybe this is the day you have been praying over and you have been consciously preparing yourself to make vows to each other before God and your family and it’s a monumental occasion in your spiritual life.  

Is your ceremony part of the wedding industry?  The answer is both yes, and no. You might hire vendors to prepare your flowers and play music, you purchase a dress and a suit and lots and lots of other things.  But you don’t really need any of those things to be married. All you really need is a marriage license and someone to legally marry you. I realized this a few years after I started working as a professional wedding officiant.  I live in Indiana, and they decided they were not longer going to marry couples at our local courthouse. You could no longer just “run down to the courthouse and get married.” In many counties in Indiana, judges, magistrates and clerks no longer perform weddings during regular business hours.  Suddenly, I had couples requesting my services to fill that void. While I was still performing personalized wedding ceremonies at large affairs on the weekends, my weekdays filled up with elopements and people just looking to get legally married. That’s the legal system, not the wedding industry.  The act of your priest, pastor or rabbi marrying you is part of your religion. Some religious leaders might not even sign the marriage license for you. If you get married in religious institution without a marriage license, your marriage may be recognized by your church, but not the state. They are two separate things.  Yes, you can do both all at one time, quickly and easily, it only takes a few minutes to complete a marriage license, but it does draw to light what you are actually doing. 

You may be doing one or all of the following on your wedding day:

  1. Entering into a legal contract between the two of you and the state.
  2. Performing a religious ceremony in which you will be recognized by that religion as married in accordance with their beliefs, traditions, and/or rules.
  3. Making a conscious, commitment to another human being to love, honor and cherish them until you are parted by death.
  4. Taking a day, weekend or weeks out of your life to celebrate your life, your relationship, your family and and the endless potential and possibilities you have together as a married couple.


When you are done with the act of getting married, you can do anything or nothing to celebrate.  

Her are some things to keep in mind when you are planning a wedding and being bombarded by the wedding industry:

  1. People spend money on weddings and vendors want your money.  
  2. Vendors create products and services for you to use on your wedding day and they market them to you like you need them so they can get you to buy them.
  3. Large wedding websites make money off you you.  That’s their purpose. They are funnelling the vendors to you so you will purchase from them. They get paid by the vendors for doing that.
  4. The more subscribers or registered users a wedding website has, the more they can charge for their advertising - Those advertisers are different from vendors.
  5. As a wedding vendor, I pay for premium advertising on wedding websites so you will find me and hopefully hire me.  The more I pay, the more prominent the ad.
  6. Reviews are arbitrary. (Read my blogpost about reviews here)
  7. The idea that you get what you pay for may mean the person selling you something made you feel really good about what they are selling hoping you will still feel very good after buying it. How you feel about something is really something you should control yourself based on facts that are important to you.
  8. You may pay more for something if it’s for a wedding and there are actually good reasons for that.  A wedding really isn’t just like any other party.

Why do you paying more for something because it’s for a wedding.  You could go to a bakery and order a cake and pay one price, then say it's a wedding cake and pay more.  Or rent a venue for a meeting and pay less than if you rent it for a wedding. Or buy flower arrangements cheaper then bridal bouquets.  There are reasons for this. Since this about wedding ceremonies, let me explain how I price things to give you perspective.

If you just need to get legally married today,  meaning you just need to have someone sign your marriage license and say your “I do’s,” I charge a nominal fee.  I don’t have to get dressed up for it, it’s a 15 minute appointment and I control the times and locations. My prices go up depending on the services you want.  If you are planning a huge, expensive wedding, your expectations of my services are different. I’m going to be personalizing my services just for you. Finding out how you need my services personalized takes time, correspondence takes time, traveling back and forth to meetings and to your rehearsal and wedding takes time.  I’m planning my schedule around you a year in advance. Your ceremony may last less than 30 minutes but a lot goes into preparing for that 30 minutes. I recently changed my entire price structure explaining what I can do for a couple and allowing them to choose what they want. If you don’t want a personalized ceremony, you don’t have to pay for it.  If you don’t want me at the rehearsal, you don’t have to pay for it. However, my full price has it’s benefits if you are planning a formal wedding. I clear my schedule earlier to arrive to your wedding earlier to avoid problems with traffic delays or other ceremonies running late. I schedule extra time so you can start your ceremony late if there are traffic delays or you or your guests are running late.  You are paying for assurance, kind of like an insurance policy for your wedding ceremony. You are putting a lot of time and money into planning your wedding day and each wedding vendor respects this. You may pay less for something off the shelf, and you can do that if you want, or, for a few dollars more, you get exactly what you want. 

There are many options you can can choose from when deciding on the ceremony part of your wedding.  You can read more about those here. I put together this entire website so that you could have a wide variety of ceremony ideas to choose from.  Part of making that choice is knowing what you want and why you want it. 

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    Victoria Meyer is the founder of Marry Me In Indy! LLC.  She's been officiating weddings in the greater Indianapolis area for over 8 years and has married over 3000 couples.

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 I do not claim to be the original author of any of these scripts. I am sharing it like this to make it easier for anyone to use when writing a wedding ceremony.
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  • Home
  • Parts Of A Ceremony
    • Unplugged Wedding Ceremony
    • Presentation of the Bride and Groom
    • Opening Prayers
    • Welcoming Words
    • Moment of Silence
    • Words About Love And Marriage
    • Declaration of Intent
    • Secular Wedding Vows
    • Christian Marriage Vows
    • Meaning of the Wedding Rings
    • Christian Ring Blessings
    • Christian Ring Exchanges
    • Secular Wedding Ring Exchanges
    • Christian Marriage Blessings
    • Marriage Blessings
    • Marriage Pronouncements
    • Seven Blessings for a Jewish Wedding
    • Breaking of the Glass
    • Blog The parts of a wedding ceremony
  • Site Index
    • Readings >
      • Readings About Love
      • Readings about Marriage
      • Non - Traditional Wedding Readings
      • Spiritual Wedding Readings
      • Christian Wedding Readings
      • Asian Ceremony Ideas
      • Hindu Wedding Readings
      • Disney
      • Star Wars
      • Cats and Dogs
      • Dr. Who
      • Harry Potter
      • Beatles
      • Celtic Wedding Ceremony Options
    • Unity Ceremony Ideas >
      • The Rose Ceremony
      • Wedding Box Ceremony
      • Unity Sand Ceremony
      • The Unity Cross
      • The Hand Ceremony
      • The Cord of Three Strands
      • Tying of the Fishermans Knot
      • Jumping the Broom
      • Unity Candle Ceremony
      • Tree Planting Ceremony
      • Hand Washing Ceremony
      • Foot Washing Ceremony
      • Ring Warming Ceremony
      • Blended Family Wedding Ceremony
  • Wedding Ceremony Scripts
    • Simple Wedding Ceremonies
    • Secular Ceremonies
    • Christian Wedding Ceremony Scripts
    • Civil Ceremony Scripts
    • Wedding Ceremonies
    • Handfasting Ceremony Scripts
  • Wedding Vow Renewals