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.

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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.

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Yeah. I wanted *that* wedding.

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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.

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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.)

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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!"

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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.

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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.

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Nice to meet you.

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Now hire me.