July 10, 2012

Many years ago when I first when into business a Bride's Mother contacted me about officiating her daughters' wedding which was scheduled in two weeks.  The details of the wedding were:  the ceremony would take place in front of the living room fireplace on a Saturday afternoon, and less than fifteen people would be in attendance.  So, when she asked how much my fee would be I gave her my lowest price which she then asked me to reduce even more due to the "head count."

During that two week time period,  the Mother contacted me two other times plus I personally met with the Bride and Groom.  Not once did any of them tell me that the guest count had changed and the ceremony location had changed.

One hour before the scheduled wedding was about to begin, I arrived at the Bride's Mother's home, and much to my surprise, there were two large tents erected in the back yard plus a catering truck unloading food plus two gentleman directing cars to a parking area.  Simply put, the described "small family wedding" grew by leaps and bounds.

And this is the reason why officiants do not charge their officiating fee by the number of guests attending the wedding. I was misinformed and mislead . . I was told less than fifteen people were invited, and in actuality, over one hundred people attended the ceremony in one of the tents. And even if fifteen people were invited originally, not once did the Bride or her Mother rectify the misinformation even though they had several opportunities to do so. And even when the Bride's Mother paid me, which was approximately thirty minutes before the ceremony started, the Bride's Mother offered no explanations or monetary corrections about the scenario.

They won and I lost.  Lesson learned.

Illustration from Southern Living House Plans