Minnesota Wedding Officiants

Be sure to meet Jim Albani before sending in your down payment. We made this mistake and booked him about 80 days before our wedding without actually meeting him. After realizing he was not a good fit, we were unable to get any portion of our $ 195 deposit back since he required a 90 day cancellation notice.
During our meeting, he was not very outgoing, did not make eye contact, and did not speak loud enough to hear across the table. He sat in the back of the café that we were meeting while we were waiting in the lobby for over 15 minutes — which doesn’t make sense since we hadn’t met him before and weren’t sure what he looked like.
We also attended a wedding that he officiated and were not impressed. In our opinion, he mumbled and sped through the ceremony… almost like he had somewhere else to be.
The ceremony book he provides is somewhat helpful, but nothing that isn’t on Google.

We chose Jen Gori as officiant for our non-​religious ceremony. She was great — professional and well-​spoken, with a good sense of humor. The pricing for services is in line with what we found at other companies — around $ 500 total, with rehearsal included. The model for the business is interesting — you can basically build your own ceremony based on tons of options for vows, etc.

Not being religious and with my parent’s backyard venue in mind, my husband and I wanted to hire an officiant for our September 2012 wedding. We googled and compared reviews of local officiants. We wanted to hire someone that was affordable and able to direct a rehearsal.
We got paired with Cara Tollefson through Minnesota Officiants. We had a sit down to meet Cara at a location that was convenient for the three of us. When we met Cara she gave us a lot of information and answered all of our many questions. We instantly got a good vibe from her. Although the cost of services was a little more than we had budgeted we recognized it was due to the fact that we wanted rehearsal time to be added in there. Cara didn’t once pressure us to pay any kind of deposit but instead simply explained that if we wanted to pursue her services that we just needed to mail in a signed contract and a deposit.
After we sent the deposit within the week she sent us a ceremony planner. This walked us through all the elements of the wedding with many options of each. With this planner we were able to pick and choose our readings, ritual, opening/​closing remarks, etc. There was plenty flexibility to get as traditional or unique as we wanted. We opted for a simple and short non-​denominatial ceremony. Cara was very responsive and helpful via email and even offered to meet in person as needed.
Cara was absolutely fabulous! The day before at the rehearsal we walked through everything and that was VERY helpful. I appreciate that she was willing to rehearse with us. She did a fabulous job of directing everyone. The ceremony felt so personal and everything she said was heartfelt. I’m sure she does a ton of weddings and it meant so much that she was genuinely happy and excited for us. She had an amazing energy and many people commented on what an wonderful job she did.
Our wedding day was so special, it meant so much to have Cara there! I’m so happy we trusted our guts with our first meeting. She was absolutely fabulous and facilitated a beautiful and meaningful ceremony.

My fiancée and I got engaged in June and planned an August wedding. Wanting to be as officant as possible, we googled «mn wedding officiants» and went with the first person who popped up, who was Jim Albani.
He was reluctant to drive across town to meet us, and wanted to meet at his familair spot at Sabastian Joes in Uptown. It was one of those really hot days, and after driving in rush hour, we were eager to sit inside and get ice cream. But Jim explained that he had been there for a while meeting with a different couple and was now cold and wanted to sit outside. He did not offer us time to order ice cream, and outside was SO HOT. He apparantly didn’t notice our being uncomfortable. It was difficult to have a conversation with the noisey traffic. He also had very poor eye contact and seemed nervous.
We should have trusted our gut and walked away at this point, but we were eager to get the ball rolling, so we gave him the $ 150 he asked for. At this first meeting, he said HE would take care of ALL legal leg work. All we had to do was make sure we had current drivers licenses — not clipped– at the time of the wedding. He promised to email us a copy of his wedding e book right away.
We didn’t get the e book for a few days, but the e book IS well put together, I must say.
In a nutshell, during this process Jim has been non-​communicative and has not shown a whole lot of investment. We have been the ones to remind him of things we need to do, such as set up our next meeting, etc.
My fiancée is a wedding photographer and was talking with the officiant at the last wedding he did. That officiant asked if we had the marriage license yet??? Jim failed to tell us that we needed to do this, and that there is a 5 day hold! This is our 1^st wedding, how were we to know? He promised to do «all legal legwork» and we were trusting and relied in his expertise and expierence.
When asked about this, Jim first said «well, you’re the first bride in all my years to not just know to do this.» THEN he changed his story and said he already covered this, although as of now it is not covered in his website or any tangible paperwork given to us. It was never discussed with us.
He offered to give our $ 150 back, and today we got a check for $ 145.
We spent a very frightening day trying to make an appointment at a social service department, taking unexpected time off work, paying $ 115 we didn’t know we had to spend, SEVEN business days prior to our wedding! PHEW! If my fiancée hadn’t happened upon that information, we couldn’t get legally married on our wedding day.
Needless to say, we stopped working with Jim and hired the officiant from Jason’s last wedding, Judge John Edward Cass. He is pulling through for us at the last minute. He has been in contat with us almost daily. He is personable and EXTREMELY dependable.

My wife and I were married at Mill City Museum this past August 2009 and we were fortunate enough to happen upon Jim Albani early enough in our planning process to secure his services for our wedding date.
Our first meeting with Jim was at The Wilde Roast in NE (his recommendation) and we knew within five minutes that we wanted him to officiate our wedding ceremony. He was well-​organized, amicably professional, and listened to our thoughts/​concerns while providing great feed back. Exactly what we needed.
We were looking for someone who seemed capable of delivering a seamless presentation. After only meeting a few times before our wedding day and without any prior rehearsal, Jim exceeded our highest expectations. He eliminated any and all worry from the entire process — allowing us to relax and focus on each other. Through thoughtful prepping and communication, he helped us to create a beautiful ceremony that accurately represented us as a couple and we couldn’t be more happy with the results.
Thanks Jim!