No one wants to (re)marry us...

Of all the many steps involved with planning a wedding, I never thought finding the officiant would end up being the hardest part!

The first thing we did was try to contact the judge who married us the first time at the town court.  After emailing and sending a written letter (because I didn't get an email response after a week), then waiting another week, we finally got the following response through email:

"Unfortunately Judge S******** in not available to do the ceremony next year.  She can only perform civil ceremonies if there is a valid marriage license.  Good luck." 

[spelling error left in on purpose]

I had never heard of such a thing, but I didn't want to fight it, so I moved on.  I googled "wedding officiant near North Creek, NY" and was directed to a few different places.  I looked at several and picked three to show Ryan, then we narrowed it down to two that we wanted the contact.

The first people we contacted were the Reverends Mary and Denis Cole.  Mary was extremely fast, courteous, and professional in her email response to me, but I was shocked to find out that they would charge us $400.  This fee includes consultations, preparation, and the ceremony, but is way out of our budget.  We aren't looking for anything extremely personalized, and we really felt that $400 was too much for 30-60 minutes worth of work, so we moved on...

The next was Victoria.  We really liked her blog, especially one post where she described her joy at helping a married couple with their vow renewal ceremony.  Again, she was quick, polite, and professional in her email, and again we were horrified at the fee.  This time it was $650!

Are we wrong to think that a judge or minister for a simple vow renewal ceremony should not cost this much?  We are stuck now and do not know what to do next.  Does anyone out there on the web have an idea?

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