The Man with the Power

We picked our officiant! We're just checking those things off our list right and left. Check check check.

We looked at a couple of different reverends in the area and had a hard time deciding, which is why it took so long. Past Disney brides have a lot of opinions about their officiants, so I had a lot of input. The most helpful thing was watching video online of other people's Disney weddings using those officiants. Accents, hand gestures, all that stuff...a lot of it went into our decision making.

Honestly, I kind of wanted to have someone we know do it. I wish I could say my reasons had to do with making it meaningful and personal for us, but in reality I just didn't want to shell out any more cash. I figured we were bound to have a guest that would be willing to get licensed on the internet and then say a few words. Kyle, however, thought we shouldn't cut corners with the person who will be performing our marriage...since it's our marriage and all. FINE.

It's sort of a weird thing, shopping for a minister online. Kyle and I had different requirements. Honestly, he was surprisingly picky. For one thing, he wanted a man. I've had female ministers for most of my life, but he was pretty dead set on wanting a male reverend. I sort of did the whole feminist argument, but ultimately he was like, "I don't know what to tell you. It's stupid, but we're going to get married by a man and that's that." To be fair, he's had a much smaller share of control over the wedding decisions, and as there wasn't a female reverend that I was attached to, I figured it wasn't worth the battle. Ultimately it came down to an old man with a southern accent, a young man with a high voice, and a middle-aged man with no discernible characteristics.

Ultimately, we decided to go with the third option, Rev. Kevin Knox. He's a very popular pick among Disney brides and I've never heard a negative review of him. I was actually still sort of on the fence, but Jensey left a comment a while back that said that she'd seen him do his work numerous times and he was always a good choice. Without being able to meet him in person, you can't really go off of much more than that. We would have picked him sooner, but there was this totally random reason that I was hesitant. After I emailed him asking for information, I got a series of 5-6 emails that seemed like advertisements. I don't know exactly what the deal was, but as soon as I asked to be taken off the mailing list, they stopped. So, just so you know, if you contact him and start getting spam-ish type stuff in your inbox, just drop them a line.

We could only find one video of him, but he seems like a very nice person. It's sort of a funny video, though, for a couple of reasons. One is that it's really quiet, so we couldn't hear most of the ceremony. The other is that the first five minutes of the video is the bridal party walking in...to the song from Zelda. You know the video game? I don't know what's geekier...the fact that they picked it or the fact that Kyle and I both went, "hey, that's Zelda!"

We still have to coordinate things, etc., but I'm happy with the decision. He seems like he'll be easy to work with and he works with a team of people who are also officiants, so in a pinch there will be someone to marry us.