Hank Visscher, ThB, MA

We used Hank for our wedding in Sept 2014 and we were very pleased with how it turned out.
My husband and I originally met with a woman who we connected with but she was already booked up for our wedding date. I then remembered my sister’s wedding in Sept 2009 and what a wonderful job her officiant did. We called Hank up, met with him for 3 counseling sessions, and hired him to officiate our wedding.
While the 3 counseling sessions may be more helpful to some than others (I got a good bit from it but my husband did not) it is good to do so he gets to know you better. He performed our ceremony beautifully and made it personal to us as a couple.
I think the Rose Ceremony Hank incorporates is a great idea and I am glad we did it — It’s more unique than the Sand Ceremony, etc. and includes parents which was nice.
Hank and Judi are very sweet, good people. We were very pleased.

My husband and I had already been together for 12 years prior to having Hank wed us. Neither of us had been in a hurry to marry. Then, my fiancé found out his mother was gravely ill and the two of us needed to fly out of the country to see her and her side of the family right away. We decided we wanted to get married before leaving US soil.
Against all odds, Hank was willing to marry us within an hour and a half of first speaking to him. He performed the ceremony — a very simple (our choice), beautiful and reasonably priced ceremony — just hours before we stepped on the plane to leave!
Our wedding was so spontaneous that we hadn’t even located a witness. Hank’s wife (a wonderful, big-​hearted woman) was our primary witness, and a neighbor — he was great too — stood in as an additional witness. We couldn’t have asked for a better officiant. Hank’s words were well-​chosen and wise; he was professional and sincere. I’m still amazed at how fortunate we were to find Hank (and his wife and neighbor) at the very last minute. Thanks so much «guys»!! You have no idea how much your flexibility, willingness, humor and effort meant to us.

My husband and I had no idea who we would ask to officiate our ceremony– until a coworker friend recommended Hank. He was personable and organized, with a great speaking voice. We loved his rose ceremony as it allowed both sets of parents to be involved. We couldn’t have found a better person to marry us!

It has taken me a long time to decide to write this review because I thought after 4.5 years I’d have forgotten. I’ve decided that Hank needs to know how displeased we were with his services. Our wedding was July 22, 2005.
Hank was the worst possible fit for us. We interviewed 3 officiants, and Hank was the most expensive. We did end up opting for him since he seemed very confident and played himself up. We also wanted to take advantage of the premarital counseling he provided. We were to receive 3 meetings with him, but only got 2. On the day that we scheduled our 2^nd appointment, I received a phone call from my father in San Jose that Hank was frantically looking for us and we were an hour late. What had happened was Hank wrote the wrong time in a confirmation email to us, so while we read the time he wrote, 11am, he meant 10am and was ready to hold us at blame until he checked his email and saw his own error. He also likes to talk about how «thrifty» he is about making his own coffee, not using Starbucks, and this thriftiness continued in phone service. He was too cheap to call our long distance cell numbers and instead went round about to call my dad to have him harass us for being «late».
The 2 counseling sessions didn’t accomplish anything. Having a psychology degree, I found his personality test a joke, told him that self reflection is incorrect because we all lie to ourselves, and that I didn’t want to go over it. I wanted to spend our time talking about more useful things. He went over it anyhow.
We told him we were not religious and specifically did not want any praying or praise to god. We had also sent him a website we made so that he could get to know more about us that way and incorporate it into the ceremony. He has BAD memory. He led us all in prayer. I was so shocked that I stared at him the whole time while he bowed his head and brought religion into my day. Really? He couldn’t remember how important it was to us to NOT have a religious ceremony? We went over it many times.
When the ceremony was finally over and we kisses, at that exact moment, Hank turned around and BENT OVER to pick up something off the ground. We do not have a single kissing picture that does not have his giant black robed ass hovering between us. He was down there so long that after the kiss, there is a picture of me telling my husband what he did, and his butt is still there. These can’t be photoshopped out since it was an outdoor wedding and there is too much background. Thanks, Hank! We love thinking about your butt when remembering our first married kiss!
There are so many tiny thing that go wrong or not as expected at weddings. Almost all of these are forgotten or turned into funny stories. But Hank? Choosing him was the one thing I regret about our wedding.
If you want to be married having the same shpiel he gives everyone, don’t care if he ignores your desires, charges high but is too cheap to call you, and are willing to have your ceremony pictures ruined… by all means, hire Hank. But if you want something personal and don’t want the officiant to take away from your wedding, go elsewhere.

Hank performed a beautiful ceremony for me and my husband on 3÷22÷08. Many of my guests commented on how nice the ceremony was and I agreed! He made us feel completely comfortable at our first meeting with him and he puts in a lot of effort to get to know you and make your ceremony personal. In addition he brings his wife Judy along to the rehearsal and ceremony to help out with lining folks up and sending them down the isle. Though she is just in the background she is a big help! The only negative is that we paid $ 550 for all of this. Perhaps this is the going rate in Northern CA, but it seems a bit steep to me. Definitely our only non-​bargain wedding day purchase, but we wouldn’t change it for the world! I highly recommend Hank!

I immediately felt as ease with Hank when I talked with him on the phone. We needed a non-​denominational officiant for our wedding, and after we met with him in his Walnut Creek office we knew he fit the bill.
Speaking of the bill, he charges $ 350 (usually $ 400 but we didn’t do a rehearsal with him the night before). That’s lower than most officiants around. Niiiiice.
Hank is very organized and requests a list of who’s walking with who down the aisle. He practices the bride hand-​off with the parents, and he also brings his wife along and she lines all the attendants up and makes sure everything runs smoothly. You feel like you’re in good hand with Hank and, with respect to «King of the Hill,» Hank’s wife.
He followed our wishes on what we wanted in the ceremony. He also included a rose ceremony (no, nothing like what’s on «The Bachelor») by request. It’s a nice way to include the moms in the ceremony since the bride’s dad gets the big role.
His words during the ceremony are all really nice. The only thing that struck me as odd was that he mentioned at the end of the ceremony for no particular reason how I’d e-​mailed him asking if I’d left my sweater at his office. It almost seemed like he looked through our correspondence with us so he could personalize the ceremony (since he does about 100 a year) and that’s all he could come up with. Nevertheless, we were really happy with him.