Officiant Doug

had a destination wedding in Florida, he communicated very thoroughly and everything went as planned! 😄 We can’t thank him enough for marrying us and being such an important part of our wedding!  

1. He was late to the wedding service! Basic expectation here. It was extremely stressful. Everything was ready to go for a 5:30 wedding and he got there at 5:23. My husband is texting asking if our reverend is there because he was on the beach waiting with everyone - in 58 degrees windy weather (the wedding coordinator had a jacket on!) and I had to call Officiant Doug to see where he was. Earlier that day our coordinator had checked with Officiant Doug and confirmed the start time given the weather forecast.   2. Poor communication and follow through. The whole experience after we initially booked Officiant Doug in early February for our May 1st wedding was me checking in, me reminding him of details previously mentioned such as no attendants, me following up via text or phone call - then waiting for follow up. I felt like I had to chase information vs him being “on it”. We booked his most expensive level of service so we are extremely frustrated with our experience. Officiant Doug mentioned some family health concerns taking place during this time. While we are sympathetic to that, at the same time for such an important milestone in peoples lives, if it’s not a good time personally then maybe don’t take on new clients when you can’t deliver a high level of service.  1. Disappointing wedding service. There shouldn’t be bad surprises for something as special as your wedding service. We were disappointed in the service he did for our wedding. It was so long!! We spent a lot of time designing the draft we wanted. He didn’t give us a copy of the final service  so caught us off guard during the wedding ceremony. We had indicated we wanted a simple, heartfelt, customized service for us and our 10 family members in attendance. He didn’t include what are our family said - and we didn’t know he was skipping that because he didn’t communicate it in advance. This was part of the extra level of customization we paid for. I kept waiting for that in the ceremony. In the service be also prayed over the rings which we didn’t want. We wanted the blessing read naturally as part of the service. It was a clunky transition with the formal prayer and not what we wanted as some of the family religiously doesn’t believe in wearing wedding rings. We wanted to minimize that part - and instead Officiant Doug did the opposite.  At no point did Officiant Doug check in and say “hey this reads long, I’m thinking to cut this part out, what would you prefer, etc etc.” We would’ve happily edited the service down to be able to include our family’s comments. He took that choice away from us and excluded it without our permission.  It rained during the ceremony and we do give him credit for his professionalism and hanging in there through the rain. But because of the ridiculous length of the service, everyone had to sit through the rain until the end. Several people caught colds including me.  We reached out after the ceremony to ask for a copy of the service. Officiant Doug indicated he could sense we were not happy with the service which we confirmed along with sharing some reasons why. We never heard back from him after that, not even an acknowledgement of our response.  I know many couples have great experiences with Officiant Doug - and we wish we were among them.