As with wedding gowns, often best to wait for right reverend to officiate to avoid mortification

Wednesday, April 6th 2011, 4:00 AM

You've heard of bridezillas and groomzillas, but what about a reverendzilla?

In the world of weddings, the officiant should be the sanest person in the room. You might have tearful mothers, vengeful bridesmaids and drunken groomsmen, but at the end of the aisle is a wise, peaceable person who will soothe your nerves.

Unless he rattles them.

I'm getting married in June, and I started looking for an officiant back in the middle of winter. Right on cue, I heard a cautionary tale.

A friend of a friend had her nups in Hawaii. Her setting was idyllic. The clouds cleared just in time for the outdoor ceremony. She and her fiancé stood in front of her parish priest - a guy she'd known forever, someone she expected to stay on script. Then it happened.

"Our reading today is from the Book of Tobit."

Now, I'm no Bible scholar, but ... Tobit? Turns out this book from the Apocrypha is a truly unique choice. It tells the story of Sarah, who keeps getting remarried because an evil demon murders each of her husbands before the wedding night.

"For she had been married to seven husbands," read the priest, "but the wicked demon Asmodeus killed them off before they could have intercourse with her, as it is prescribed for wives."

It's not often that a wedding ceremony references consummation, a demon and the death of the groom. One of the bridesmaids looked like she was going to tackle the priest before he could say "intercourse" again.

I started my search with this warning in mind: Know what the officiant is going to say. But, at the same time, I value personality. I didn't want some staid official whose only good trait was knowing how to memorize. Could I find verve without volatility?

I was drawn to candidates who made me laugh. One of them, Beth, peppered our first phone call with wisecracks. "I promise to shave before your wedding," she told me. "I'm Italian and I'm past menopause - you know how it is."

Funny, I thought. A little bold, but let's give her a chance. My fiancé Chris and I hopped in a Zipcar and drove up 95.

Beth sat us down at her dining table. She was about 60, smartly dressed, with glasses on a tether around her neck. Her voice was a throaty contralto with a tinge of an East Coast accent that reminded me of growing up in Massachusetts.

She introduced herself with a few more quips. ("And for all this I charge ... $8,000. No, just kidding, my fee is $475.") Then she launched into a description of what she planned to wear, and drafted our entire ceremony as we sat mute.

She had a script all right, and one she would stick to, but it had almost nothing to do with us.

The jaunty character that had intrigued me vanished before my eyes. In Beth's stack of suggested readings was Corinthians - "Love is patient, love is kind. ..." That's about as far as you can get from the Book of Tobit, but everyone has heard it before.

I was at a loss. Could I personalize my vows without making them weird? Was there an officiant who could add color without freaking people out?

We went to meet the other justice of the peace on our itinerary. Don met us at the door of his house with a warm handshake and an exuberant dog named Lola. Moments later, we were seated in front of a roaring fire and Lola had flung herself into our laps.

"Oh Lola, no!" said Don, setting down a tray of tea and snacks.

Lola accepted her scolding unruffled, and strutted to a spot near Don's feet, where she got comfortable. Don was somewhere in his 40s, with a shock of dark hair and an air of mirth about him.

"So," he said, "how did you meet?"

For the first half hour, he let us talk about ourselves, and gradually it turned into a conversation. What did we see our day being like? What family members would take part? Did my brother want to do a reading?

The more we found out about Don, the more I knew I'd been right to hold out for someone special. He'd grown up in the town where our wedding will take place - in the very same house, in fact, which he bought from his parents when they were ready to retire. He had campaigned for marriage equality in Connecticut and, when the ruling passed, started performing ceremonies himself. We could relate to him, but he would bring his own touch to our proceedings. Oh, and he has a past in theater, so guests will hear him in the back row.

Will he be perfect? Does it matter?

By the end of the meeting, I had forgotten about the Book of Tobit. Sure, it's a cringe-worthy wedding tale, but the rest of that bride's evening was a success. She danced with her father, cried tears of joy, and sanctified her partnership with the man she loves.

Should she have excluded her family's priest from the big day just because he was a bit of a live wire? In a word: no.

There was a time when it seemed like any little mistake might lead to a lifetime of embarrassment. But that was somewhere in my first quarter, when the urge to be perfect outweighed perspective - or maybe I just needed to get a life. Part of marriage is looking forward to the unpredictable, the twists and turns that are bound to surprise you. Let's just hope they're demon-free.