A little backstory: My fiancé and I hired an officiant we found on WW for our October 2019 wedding back in December 2018. The contract agreement was for us to pay the officiant fee (50% up front to hold the date), remaining 50% on the wedding day, a hotel room for the night of the wedding, and travel to and from the venue (he’s coming 1.5 hours away from where we’re getting married.) He would arrive 1.5 hours before the ceremony on the wedding day, perform the ceremony, and possibly stay for the reception dinner.
In February 2019 my fiancé and I decided to push our wedding back to October 2020 to allow ourselves more time to plan and more time to save money. We notified our officiant of our change in plans as soon as we made the decision and asked if he would be willing to transfer the paid deposit to our new date, as our venue and catering did with no problem.
He told us via email that he was cool with moving the deposit to the new date, but didn’t send us a new contract reflecting that. This past weekend we followed up with a request that he send us an updated contract with the new date so we could sign it and make our change official. He wrote back, “Please see attachment below. There is a small update.”
We printed the new contract with our new date and cross-compared it to our old contract.
The change is this – He now wants a hotel room for two nights – the night before the wedding and the night of the wedding for two people. In our contract he wrote, “I ask for a double night stay at the hotel since I do not want to travel back home in the evening. When I do destination weddings, they are usually for two nights, no other meals, etc. I do not know if anyone will travel with me at this point, but can we leave that option open?”
It’s important to note that we’re getting married on a Saturday, 1.5 hours away from where he lives. Would you consider that to be a destination wedding? Also, he had no intention of going to the rehearsal before the wedding. I’m not sure if that is now his intention.
I’m not sure if this is normal or not, especially since he isn’t my childhood priest or my fiancé’s childhood pastor. He’s a stranger at this point who was hired to do a service. I kind of feel like we’re being taken advantage of, like we’re paying for a weekend getaway.
Any advice/thoughts/feedback will be greatly appreciated!
