"i now pronounce you..." finding an officiant

"Mawwiage. Mawwiage is what bwings us togethew today."

Wouldn't it be fun if The Impressive Clergyman married us? Did you even know that was the character's official name on IMDB? I didn't, but I'm hoping this will come in handy never.

Finding an officiant has been on our checklist for awhile, but got pushed to the back burner as soon as I discovered the natural high that is trying on wedding dresses. Pretty much everything got pushed to the back burner for that and I am only now, slowly, emerging from that stupor. (Who needs crack when you have TULLE? My gal at Kleinfeld says that tulle is amazing because it makes everyone smile. Also, I think I might be able to hide snacks in between some of the layers.)

When we first started think about who would marry us -- OK, let's be honest, when I first started thinking about who would marry us after Mike and I had been dating for about three days -- it seemed that a Catholic priest and a Jewish rabbi could sort of Ike-and-Tina it (minus the punching ... hopefully) and that would make everyone happy. We ran into a few problems with this pretty quickly:

1) Apparently sometimes priests and rabbis don't like to play together? We are in 2012, yes?
2) Both sets of parents found this to be a weird arrangement.
3) This concept of "your" priest or "your" rabbi doesn't really apply to us. (Slight digression: "your" designations that I did wish apply to me: truffle farm, Norwegian Forest kittens, Birkin) Neither of us has voluntarily attended a religious service in a very, very long time. And I will save you the trouble of going into my rant on the Catholic Church. But! If you'd like to call my mother, I'm sure she will have several choice words for you and I agree with them all.
4) We don't really want a religious ceremony.

So this idea got understandably chucked out the window. Our next thought was finding that perfect friend or family member who would encompass everything we ever dreamt of for our ceremony: a great public speaker, knowledgable about all of our idiosyncrasies, and Oscar and/or Grammy winner. While this option isn't totally off the table, we've been engaged since October and have yet to find that person that we feel would be perfect for this. Wedding guests: speak now or forever hold your peace.

On to option three! An unknown entity. Once again, back to the trusty New York Magazine guide to see if we could connect with any of these kind souls by examining their ... email addresses. This guide is unfortunately a little bit lacking compared with others. But, on the bright side, we've already been in contact with two officiants who seemed well-versed in interfaith/nondenominational ceremonies and we're meeting with one of them this weekend. I definitely think there's something to be said for someone who makes this their job; even if there's no longstanding relationship with him or her, their livelihood is making your wedding ceremony memorable and meaningful. And a lot of the officiants want to meet with you at least two or three times before the big day so by the time they actually "pronounce" you, they do it with knowledge of who you really are as a couple.

This is an ever-evolving process, but I'm hopeful we'll be able to cross this off our checklist sometime in the next few weeks. Like everything else in New York, the "hottest" officiants (this is dripping with sarcasm) get scooped up rather quickly, so time is of the essence! But all kidding aside, this is definitely one aspect of the wedding that we're OK taking our time with. I think we'll know the right person when we meet him or her and I'll be patient until then.