American Weddings Blog

Officiating demands a substantial amount of your personal time, effort, thought, consideration - and almost always, love.

So it’s only fair when a new officiant wonders, “How much should I charge for my services?”

The answer in short is this: Officiant fees vary drastically across the country, so you will have to do a bit of research to determine this magical number.

If you are considering performing ceremonies in a professional capacity, you will want to start by looking into what others are charging locally, and proceeding from there.

We recommend doing an online search along the lines of, “Wedding Officiant in [City Name]”. You can also use vendor searches for your area - like looking up Officiants in Wedding Wire's Vendor Search based on location.

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It happens to the best of us… we make a goof while delivering a wedding ceremony. It may be missing a word (or words), it may be pronouncing something incorrectly, or perhaps it’s a matter of losing our place in the ceremony. We’ve all been there. You’re not alone, so if it happens, don’t worry!

But truthfully, 95% of the time, it is not the goof that matters, but how you handle it. So, here are some tips:

Stay Calm

This is sometimes tough but if you realize you made a mistake or lose your place, staying calm will prevent you from making more mistakes. If you let yourself get flustered by the one mistake, you increase the likelihood of making more mistakes. If you have to, wait till you get to a natural pause point (e.g. the end of a paragraph), take a deep breath, quickly center yourself, and then move on.

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Big news, Ministers: we’re officially launching our Wedding Wall, a place where you can publish and share wedding ceremonies to inspire other ministers and couples!

Using our updated dashboard, you can select weddings that you officiated, and easily proof and share them on our website. We’re even giving you a space on the front page of our website because we think your weddings are so awesome! 

Here's how it works:

STEP 1: SELECT THE WEDDING
From the “Wedding Helper” tab on your profile page, select the wedding that you would like to share on AMM’s Wedding Wall.

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If you and your significant other are considering asking a certain uncle, a college roommate, or perhaps even your college professor to perform your wedding ceremony, here are some important points to keep in mind: 

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