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REV D
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I used to hate weddings.
You see, when my then-boyfriend proposed to me in June of 2010, I was caught completely off-guard. Having a wedding had never been a lifelong dream of mine, so when the opportunity presented itself, I decided that I wanted to do nothing more than avoid it altogether. I fought bravely and valiantly to skip the whole annoying process and elope, but it was a battle I was destined to lose. Ricky pulled that whole "I love you and I want everyone to see how much I love you" card and smashed me over the head with it to the point where I just couldn't say no. It would have been like kicking a puppy. So basically, I was stuck planning a wedding I didn't want.
Until it occurred to me that maybe the reason I hated weddings so much was because they weren't mine. Unbridled by any rules of "tradition" or notions of what a wedding should or shouldn't be, I realized that it *could* be anything I wanted. And I wanted it to be AWESOME. I wanted it to be the wedding that, years later, as my guests were at some standard, run-of-the-mill, boring wedding, they'd wistfully tell everyone within earshot about the coolest wedding they'd ever been to, and then secretly hate their lives for having to be at a crappy one and want to go home.
Yeah. I wanted *that* wedding.
And so, I set out to plan the wedding I always wished I could go to. I tackled wedding planning like I do everything else in my life: like a bulldozer on speed. Within three weeks of getting engaged, I had secured the venue, the food, the booze, the DJ, the dress, the materials to make the favors, the invites and the Afterparty entertainment. I mean, I ran that thing like a Navy Seal Operation: get in, hit it, get the hell out.
The only thing I didn't have was an Officiant. Typing "offbeat, unusual, gothic, funny, gay, lesbian, punk" or "rock" before NYC Wedding Officiant only served to bring up dozens of pages of really normal-looking people who all made the same generic promise to give me a "unique, loving and personal experience". And who, consequently, all charged an average of about $600 for what would essentially boil down to 10 minutes of my life. (Oh, and most of them didn't even list their fees online. I had to email them and ask. ANNOYING.)
To say that the experience pissed me off would be a tragic understatement, not to mention that it undermined my whole planning philosphy of low-budget, DIY and fun. So I said "Screw it! I'll just get registered as an officiant and marry myself!"
Yeah. Well, it turns out that there's only one state where you can do that, and it isn't New York, so that idea got shot down. But it was too late. I was officially an Officiant.
And so, here I am: your one-stop, NYC, low-budget, alternative, D.I.Y., offbeat, gothic, gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered, steampunk, rock and roll, Halloween, cosplay, comicon, sci-fi, nerd, punk and generally left-of-center wedding planner and non-denominational Reverend.
Nice to meet you.
Now hire me.