So my boyfriend and I have deiced to skip the engagement stage and just go tie the knot. We been together for 5 years and neither of us wants to wait any longer. We wanted a fall wedding and figured this upcoming Monday would be the date we got hitched. We looked up costs for the license and the cost to get married at the court house(which is way more than I thought it would be). About two weeks ago we decided to try and find a officiant who was on par with the courthouse or cheaper because we need to save money wherever we can. I found a guy who is legal to officiate here in Nevada and worked for tips because he felt love shouldn't cost you an arm and a leg. I got a hold of him and we chatted back and forth about the date and location and what we wanted in the ceremony since we are a pagan/wican couple. My man and I hadn't settled on an elemental blessing yet and I told him we pick one that night and get back to him the next day so that he could figure out where to work it into the service at.

 At this point it had gone from just us a single witness and the officiant to us and several friends who'd learned we were eloping in one fashion or another. Not a biggie I'd rather share the day with a few close friends who are close enough to make it.  We want it to happen just before sunset so pics can be during and after with maybe some nice twilight shots too.  SO I text the guy and ask for an email to send the blessing to because who wants to type that out on a phone??? And no answer of any sort. we kept hoping he'd get back to us and he hasn't. SO now its the day before our mini wedding and we have no one to marry us that won't cost an arm and a leg plus will do it in the park where we'd like it to happen.

 Friends of friends has said "Oh we know So and So they are a legal officiant." but then never give us the contact info for this person so we can try and get in touch with them.

 I just wanted the day to be special and have a touch of the ceremony we'd like to have if we could afford it.

Be patient. Weddings, even informal ones, always run into speedbumps. You'll get another chance to have it play out the way you want.

My wife and I spent several years planning and making things for our wedding. We've been poor for a long time, so we had to keep costs to a minimum wherever possible. After a while, it became a game: how many corners can we cut and still have what we want out of it? We managed to find a nice dress at a bargain store, and I got lucky and found a nice suit when an old neighbor moved out and let me look through his stuff.

The priest who officiated our wedding was a friend of ours, and waived his normal fees (we were members of his church, so he would have done so anyway), and we recruited friends to handle things like the music. We made our own invitations (kept it small), someone else volunteered to cover the reception for us (it was at a buffet restaurant, nothing fancy).

In the end, we got the wedding we wanted, for a whopping $600 overall. Half of that went into the rings (which we got on clearance), the rest was scrounging and making things ourselves and eliminating anything that was just for fluff.

My only complaint? We didn't get the date I wanted. When we finally had everything lined up, the first available date was August 1st. If we'd waited a week, our wedding date would have been 8/8/8... but the missus didn't want to wait any longer. C'est la vie.

Just a note for you - there is a thread already set up for such rants - Vents with allowed responses - 3
We get allot of random things there. Your post here would fit there nicely.

Sorry to hear about your wedding troubles. I hope you find someone who can help out for a reasonable amount.

(Worse comes to worse, for $50 or so it's possible to become a Legal priest, capable of doing weddings and such from some spiritualist churches, many of which can be found on the web - recruit a fellow pagan for it. ^-^)

Have the ceremony as planned. Have a close or respected friend/ person "officiate." Give them a script to read and have them hold it in a book of your choosing. Then ask someone to just go online and get certified to sign off on a wedding. They can just sign the paperwork later. Your official marriage date will be later than the ceremony date, but you can still celebrate the day you planned as your wedding day and all anniversaries after. We had our celebration far after we signed the official paperwork, we choose to celebrate the day we had our formal wedding and reception even if it isn't actually what's on file with the state.

That's basically what we ended up doing. Though we went to the Justice of the Peace. My OCD wont allow me to have the dates different. They have to match.

Common law marriage allowed in your state ??  There are some legal requirements on that end too.