xarm

There aren't many officiants on Mackinac Island and all I found were Christian ministers. Reverend Marx was available for our wedding on very short notice (three weeks) and was very responsive in sending us the vows to approve and in making changes on such short notice. He agreed to do a non-religious wedding ceremony in which we wrote our own vows. He also agreed to strike the one mention of "god" from his sermon and to present my husband and I as "Mr. John Doe and Ms. Jane Smith" as I chose to retain my own name and prefer to be addressed as Ms. and not Mrs.

Reverend Marx showed up promptly (he lived across the street from our venue) and performed as expected. I was disappointed, however, that he still read the line that included "god" in it and then presented my husband and I as "Mr. John Doe and Mrs. Jane Smith." He apologized profusely and said that he had noted it down, but forgot since he does this ceremony so often. It was disappointing, but not unforgivable -- I was so excited I hardly even noticed his gaffe. Although his sermon was nice, I later found that it is widely distributed on the internet and that he didn't write it. All in all, he got paid $200 for 15 minutes worth of work while reading a sermon that was written by someone else. Not bad.