I initially emailed DC Marriage Knot. No response to the email after a day or so (no big deal, it's close to the holidays), so I called and left a message. She then called me, which I missed, and then I called her back and missed her. She called back the next morning (which I missed) and then I called her back an hour later. The conversation started off pretty rude. She said something along the lines of, "Well, I have been trying to get in touch with you," and something about how she couldn't work my voicemail despite the fact that my voicemail is fully functional and I received one successfully the day before. She said, "I thought, wow he must be a busy man," in kind of a sarcastic tone. Rude, especially given the fact that it was hard to get in touch with her at first, and I was nothing but friendly and chipper in all my communications. Not to mention that I was a potential customer.
The entire call she made it seem like I was annoying her. I asked her, "Do you do wedding photography?" (her website says she offers this) and she said, "No, if I have to have my finger exposed to click the shutter, my finger will get cold." (We wanted to get married New Year's Eve day outdoors because of COVID.) She literally said that almost word-for-word, as hilarious and ridiculous as it sounds. You could not make that up. At that point, I said, "Oh, we'll just go with someone who can take photos." (Nicely I might add, I was not snooty at all. I could just tell she was not a gracious person so I was trying to let her down gently.) She then backpedaled a little and said, "Oh, no, I could still do the ceremony," trying to win back our business. At which point I reminded her, "Well, you would need to walk for 30 minutes to get to the site, perform the ceremony, and then walk 30 minutes back." (The site we chose is not super far from downtown DC, not in a remote area or anything like that. It's near a waterfall on the Potomac that takes some light walking on a flat path to get to.) She then backpedaled again and said she wasn't interested because she might get too cold, thanked me for my interest in a fake way, and that was it.
A marriage ceremony, even an elopement, should be all about the two folks tying the knot, not about putting the officiant's comfort on a silver platter. Nowhere on her website does it say anything about not doing outdoor winter weddings. The website portrays her as totally flexible, which baffles me as she came into our phone call totally ready to shoot down all the reasonable requests I had.
Thank goodness she turned us down. God knows she might have been making snide comments about how cold it was on our special day (DC rarely gets below 40-45 degrees in the winter - far from the arctic tundra you might have expected given the big deal she made out of it). The objections were laughable. My fiance and I were dumbstruck. Her poor cold finger pressing the shutter!
A real professional would have said, "Yes, if this is what you want, I'll make it work! I will grab my gloves and adapt." Which is exactly what the next officiant we called did.
I'm leaving this review because she has mostly positive reviews and I wanted to let other couples know the experience we had reaching out to this business. She was haughty, presumptuous, and flat-out rude. Our request was not unreasonable, but she made us feel crazy for wanting to spend an hour outdoors in 45 degree weather. There's this crazy thing called... a coat and gloves?
An hour later I had a delightful conversation with another local officiant who is so excited to be part of our special day, even if she has to stand out in the "tundra." (Again, it probably won't even be cold! It's two weeks away! And if it is raining or cold, we'll find another date, which is what we would have done with DC Marriage Knot if given the feeling she was excited to work with us or willing to be flexible.) There are plenty of better officiants out there. You deserve someone who will put your needs first, not treat you like a burden and act like they are doing you a favor, especially given the money you will pay them. I'm glad so many folks have had a positive experience with her but I imagine there are a lot of others who have had a similar experience to ours who haven't taken the time to leave a review. So here you go.
Since you asked for advice from your other negative reviewer, here it is. Don't treat potential customers so rudely. Maybe you do enough business that being haughty to one eloping couple interested in your cheapest package and not booking them isn't a big deal. That doesn't make it right.
DC elopers, keep looking. read more