Stand In?

I've never heard of this; I've been in several wedding parties and I've never seen the bride have a stand in.

I've never heard of that.

I've never heard of this either.

I've never heard of it and my couples rarely do rehearsals.

My sister did this in her wedding. From what her preacher told us, the bride and groom cannot participate in the reading of the vows during rehearsal because the recitation of vows is what makes you married in the eyes of God, and to do that before the wedding ceremony essentially makes your ceremony itself a sham. My own preacher has also told me this. So during her rehearsal, they stood back and watched while me, as MOH, and BIL's brother, as best man, stood before the preacher and recited their vows. I also plan to do this at my own rehearsal. Not every preacher does it, i guess maybe it depends on the religion or the personal beliefs of each preacher.

By saying that, i am NOT saying anyone's ceremony was a sham, im just repeating what her preacher told us.

Haha I guess it's a good thing Dan and I didn't have our marriage license yet when we met with our officiant a few weeks ago...we definitely discussed the vows and said them out loud to see how it sounded.

I didn't have a stand-in or an officiant at my rehearsal. And we didn't read our entire ceremony or do vows. Our stand-in officiant did a lot of, "We're gathered here today, blah blah blah."

We used the rehearsal mostly so the family and wedding party would be familiar with where we're setting up, walking to, walking from, etc... For us, it was mostly all about the blocking and knowing where we needed to be.