Santa Barbara Wedding Officiant

Once you secure your venue, you should secure your day with me. Seriously. 

Before the pandemic, I was booking up to 18 months out. Now, I’m booking up to 2 years out and I already have bookings out that far. 

The best time to book my services is as soon as you have confirmed your wedding date with the venue. The second-best time is now.

Personalized means that you have choice in what’s included. Think of it like shopping at IKEA – you choose from the available tried and true ready-made options to make it fit your vision.

Custom, however, is like going to a woodworker to get a rocking chair made in the hopes it’ll be a family heirloom. Like, we’re taking your vision and making it happen to a T.

That’s the difference between the services: the Short & Sweet is IKEA-style and the Let’s Get Married is woodworker style.

For the Short & Sweet service:
If you choose the simplest vows and rings with no unities or readings, about 10 minutes. With personal vows, a reading or two, and a unity ceremony, up to around 20 minutes.

For the Let’s Get Married service:
Since this service is all about custom ceremonies, so the answer for this package is “it depends”. I’ve done ceremonies as short as 8 minutes and as long as an hour. I’d say my Let’s Get Married service for Santa Barbara weddings average somewhere between 18-25 minutes.

There are only three situations in which I attend wedding rehearsals.

1. You don’t have a professional (like a wedding planner or venue coordinator) to run it for you. In this case, I will run the entire rehearsal for you! But it’s important to note that most Santa Barbara wedding venues offer coordination of the rehearsal in your package, so I don’t often attend rehearsals for my Temecula weddings.
2. Your ceremony is complex. We have an abbreviated tea ceremony as well as the lasso, aras, and veil, not to mention your two readers and a grandparents’ blessing… This is obviously a more extreme version, but you get the idea! A complex ceremony means I need to be at the rehearsal to help you sort out everything so everyone involved feels comfortable with what is supposed to happen on wedding day.
3. It is really just going to make you feel better that I’m there. Yes, it can be that simple!

Please note that a rehearsal is a $200 USD add-on to cover my time and travel.

I require 50% of the total price as your reservation fee. The remaining balance is due two weeks before the wedding.

I will guide you through the process of how to obtain your marriage license whether you’re a Santa Barbara local, coming in front out of state, or even out of the country. I always sign your marriage license after the ceremony (to do it before is legally fraud) and file it as required by law. I’ll also reach out when it’s time to get your Marriage Certificate and send you helpful tips on how to change your name, should anyone be electing to do that.

Sí, hablo español! Pero aunque mi mamá es de México, realmente no lo aprendí hasta que fui adulto. Y es mi tercer idioma! Por eso solo hago ceremonias en spanglish, no solo en español.