Pastor or Officiant

I think you want God to be a part of your ceremony. Apart means away from/out of your ceremony.

Most officiants can incorporate religious elements and most I saw were former or current pastors/ministers anyway. Ours wasn't, but we sought that out because she was the only one that didn't have a grammar trainwreck of a website. All the religious ones seemed terrible.

We are using an officiant because I didn't want a religious ceremony. Ours told us it was OUR ceremony we could have it be religious, spiritual, or none at all. He gave me a book that was 80 pages and I could pick out readings and quotes I loved and he would create our ceremony. I would say about half was very religious. You can certainly have a religious ceremony with and officiant.

And churches wonder why the pews are empty.

One of my best friends is getting married in October and their pastor made a note to talk to them about her possibly moving out until after they got married. Her parents downsized after she graduated college since they had an empty nest so unless she wanted to move out on her own she essentially had nowhere to go. I definitely understand the whole spiritual concept of it. But society has changed and cohabitation is far more common. I know that she's going to continue to live with her FH regardless of what the pastor thinks. I still think he's going to do the ceremony though. As far as my personal experience, FH and the pastor that is marrying us have been friends for a long time. So far he hasn't said anything about us cohabiting.

Huh. What kind of church is this? I'm United Methodist, which trends pretty traditional - my father is a United Methodist pastor. He would never refuse to marry someone because they live together...but it would come up in counseling. We are getting married by another UM pastor (my father just wanted to be FOB), and he didn't even ask before agreeing to be our wedding pastor. We are having a very traditional, "high church" ceremony and nearly even served communion. I'd think about looking for a pastor in a church/denomination that is accepting of your life and choices and would be honored to participate in your wedding!

In my area (don't know about yours), there were several pastors (reverends, etc) on the WW vendor tab. It was actually harder for us to find a civil officiant than a religious official.

In my area a lot of ministers do both civil and religious ceremonies. We're having a civil service done by a UCC minister, for instance. I'm sure you could find an officiant who's actually ordained, even if they don't have their own church.

Our Officiant is Rev. Kylie Renner of Albuquerque Center for Spiritual Living. We choose her for a loving and non-judgmental spirit. Google the church and give her a call, She may be an option.

My FH and I live together and our Pastor is excited to marry us and he has never hinted to us about one of us moving out until after the wedding. However, my cousin, FH and I were talking the other day and she has been married almost 10 years and she said during their counseling session, her now husband Pastor told her husband if they were living together (which they were not) he would have to move out until after the wedding.

I agree it is now more common to live together before marriage.