Not so official.

As of early September, we still didn't have an officiant. I know I should have gotten on this sooner, but with all the time I've had to plan, I got so used to putting things on the back burner wedding-wise that I just kind of.. let it go.

A little back story, first:

Both of my parents and my paternal grandfather are Lutheran pastors. One of the many questions I frequently get asked regarding the wedding is if I'm going to have my mom and/or dad officiate our wedding ceremony. From the get-go, my answer has always been a resounding HECK NO.

First off, the parentals are divorced and asking both of them do it would be dumb. Second, the parentals are divorced and asking just one of them to do it would be dumb. Third, and most importantly, I want my parents to actually enjoy the wedding, not work during it!

That being said, I still had a plethora of options. Having two pastor parents leads to a lot of pastor friends. Foxy Mama suggested a while back that we contact my godparents (also pastors) to do the ceremony, which was a good idea initially. The more I thought about it, however, the more I realized that I don't really know my godparents (I've met them but have no recollection of it, to be honest), and I don't know if they'd be ok with the kind of ceremony Mr. Foxy and I would like to have. I also think just one pastor would be fine. Seeing as I currently consider myself more spiritual than religious and Foxy is an atheist, we cannot and will not have a fully religious ceremony. Ideally, we will have a Lutheran pastor (for me) who will allow us to write most of the ceremony ourselves and be ok with keeping the God-speak on the light side (for Foxy and I both).

Enter long time family friend, Pastor Tom. My family and Tom's family have been friends since before I was born, and I grew up playing with his two kids, one of whom is just 6 months younger than I am. Tom happened to help officiate and preside over my mom's recent second wedding and did a fantastic job of keeping the homily both personal and lighthearted - two things high on my priority list for a wedding ceremony.

Pastor Tom is on the right

So the decision was to ask Tom if he would like to officiate for Foxy and I as well. I emailed him about two months ago and never heard back; I got concerned initially because all those silly wedding checklists are telling me I should have this one in the bag already. I sent a follow-up email a few weeks later and learned that he never got the original email, and also that he would love to do the wedding.

Super cool, right? So I was all excited, relayed my excitement to Foxy, and went to check this one off the list when I get a sweet but apologetic email from Tom saying that he didn't realize that he already has a wedding that day for a couple very active in his church.

Nothing says sad quite like an LOLcat.

Naturally, I did not have a second option at the time. Hive, you probably already know this but please listen up: lesson number 22 in wedding planning? Maybe get an officiant before you set everything else in stone, especially if you have a particular person in mind.

And so, the search continued!