Reverend Brian McGinley

I had to plan my wedding from another state, so finding a minister was quite a task. Many ministers are not willing to do ceremonies without first counseling the couple, which was impossible for us because we were out of state. I searched online for an independently ordained minister and found Reverend McGinley. I e-mailed him a copy of the ceremony that we wanted and he was more than willing to accommodate our wants and needs. He had done ceremonies at the chapel where we were getting married, and he only charged $200, so we were thrilled. My fiancé and I traveled to Austin one weekend to meet with different vendors and had a sit-down meeting with him to discuss our ceremony. He was extremely friendly, but seemed oddly uncomfortable. We paid the $100 deposit to save the date and decided to correspond through e-mail until the wedding date. He was very attentive and sent me reminders to get our marriage license, which I appreciated. About two weeks before the wedding I sent a final copy of the ceremony that my fiancé and I had chosen and Reverend McGinley responded that he had received it and read over it entirely. On the wedding day he showed up plenty early and even gave my mother a copy of our ceremony on beautiful paper. He signed our marriage license and agreed to mail it for us (we did provide him with the addressed and pre-paid envelope). The actual ceremony did not go at all like we had hoped. Reverend McGinley delivered the words as if he had never seen them before. To make matters worse, he left out the “Hands Ceremony,” which was the part my fiancé and I were most looking forward to. At that point there was nothing we could do but smile, so smile we did. I didn’t want to make him feel bad, so I just let it go without addressing our disappointment. I did double check the numerous e-mails we had sent back and forth to make sure the “Hands Ceremony” hadn’t been left out on my part, and it was there in every single e-mail. We’re still a bit confused as to how that happened. Overall he was very friendly, but his delivery of the ceremony was not good at all.