Most wedding officiants have probably been asked if they could officiate a wedding that was only a few days or a week or two away. With our troops being shipped out to Iraq with little advance notice this is not too infrequent. Is it possible to give them a spectacular ceremony with such short notice?

Of course it is.

To do it well you need some good interviewing skills and have a few ceremonies you can work with. You also need to be available to the couple and take their calls and give priority to their emails. If you use one standard ceremony all you have to do is fill in the names. However, if you do custom weddings you need to learn as much about the couple as you can in a very short period of time. Are they spiritual, religious or neither? Do they want a traditional wedding or something more contemporary? Do they have a relative or dear friend other than their attendants that they want to have participate in the ceremony by doing a reading or providing music ? vocal or instrumental? Will their parents be present and, if so, will the bride?s father present her? Is it all right to have a prayer for his safety while he is gone? Is it all right to work something into the ceremony about how he?s serving his country to preserve freedom for her, his future children and all of us in this country?

Be sure you listen to their story about how they met and how the relationship developed so you can use it in the ceremony. If it?s acceptable to them, talk about how their love can sustain them while he is gone and how she, their families and friends will support him and the others with prayer, positive thoughts or what ever it is that their particular belief system supports.

But most of all, keep it upbeat. Remember that this is a joyful celebration of their love and the formal declaration of the foundation of a new family. It is not a time to dwell on his leaving. Add some humor. You can have a few friends and family tell about something funny that happened in the budding romance or in the preparations for the wedding. It?s sometimes nice to have the family and guests make a half circle around the couple and imagine that they can pour love from their hearts to the bride and groom. It doesn?t matter if they?ve ever done this sort of thing before, they get the idea and the love can truly be felt by everyone there. If it?s a very small wedding party bring some roses from your local warehouse store where they?re inexpensive and let the couple give one to each guest. Get creative so this ceremony is one of the outstanding memories he has to dwell on when he?s thousands of miles from home. And if you really want to do something special, be gentle with your fee. This is a good time to gift a couple with a low or no fee. You won?t be sorry.

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