Invite officiant to the Reception?

Yes you should invite the officiant to the reception. And it's up to you whether you'd him to pray before dinner

Yes, you need to invite your officiant. And the SO of the officiant, if applicable. The officiant is a VIP! He/she married you! We aren't having a prayer again, but you certainly could.

We are inviting ours. She is a non-denominational celebrant, and will just be treated as a guest at the reception.

My officiant stayed for our reception. We had a secular wedding and didn't do praying or anything.

Yes, you invite the officiant to the reception. Mine stayed, but we actually asked a family member to give the blessing at dinner, so our officiant just sat back and enjoyed the party.

We plan to invite our officiant.

We invited ours

Yes, they and their SO (if applicable) should be invited. As for the prayer before dinner, that's up to you

Since you asked this question, I wont make another thread.

Do you need to invite your priest to the rehearsal dinner/ wedding reception if the ceremony is performed at a holly place instead of the reception site?

thanks guys! sorry to butt in, lol

Yes, we invited ours to both rehearsal dinner (since she was rehearsing with us) and the reception. She wasn't able to go to the rehearsal dinner but did go to the reception. We didn't have a prayer/or blessing before dinner.

We extended an invitation to our officiant and significant other when we signed our contract but he stated he was not planning to attend the reception.

We certainly invited, and she kindly declined. She was thankful for the offer, but know how hectic receptions can be and she wanted us to spend it with our loved ones.

Definitely invite though!

PS We had already planned to have FH's uncle give a blessing before dinner

We are getting married at my childhood church. I'll invite the priest to our rehearsal dinner and reception. If we use one of the current priests at the church he probably won't attend the reception because they have mass shortly after our ceremony. However I might ask the deacon to perform the exchange of vows for us because I know him personally and he would be invited to both the RD and reception as well.

We plan to invite ours, but we've also known him for a while as he's been the pastor for FH's church that he's gone to since he was a kid.

Not sure about praying, we probably won't be doing that. It's a personal choice.

I invited both my Pastor and his wife, was I supposed to give them an actual invitation though!? We are having our rehearsal dinner right at the church and made sure I told our Pastor.

Our officiant charged an extra $150 on top of his normal fees for the rehearsal so we did not invite him to that. He told us during our first meeting he usually hung around for the first half of cocktail hour and then he would leave. And on our wedding day, he stayed to congratulate us once again, take a picture, and chat about our moving plans for a few minutes. He was gone within 15/20 minutes after the ceremony.

I'm going to hop on this thread and ask some more questions about this because I'm also curious. So does this also apply if you never met this person before you hired them for your ceremony? If you do invite them to your reception do you send them a formal invitation in the mail as you do your their guests? Did all of you also invite them to your RD?

ETA: @Sarah so did you have to pay a whole meal/drink for him because he stayed for part of it but not all?

It's nice to be invited to the rehearsal dinner and the reception but I always graciously pass. If your officiant is staying for the reception dinner and you want them to perform a benediction please communicate that clearly with them. Best wishes!

@Bride2Be I'm in the same boat, actually. I don't know my officiant personally. I hired him through a company and after reading this thread I will extend the invite to he and his wife to attend the reception, however I will not be extending the invite for the rehearsal. It was an extra $175 just for the rehearsal, and we have a month & day of coordinator handling that.