Asking a friend to be my officiant!? ADVISE PLEASE!!!!

Heavens7thstar · January 2012

I've asked a close friend of mine to marry us. It started off kind of as a joke... but then I got to thinking about it. How nice would it be for a friend who has known the both of us since we were little to marry us. Someone I can trust and rely on to do the best job that she can. The problem is I'm not sure if there are any bad consiquences to this. Has anyone used a friend or have any advise on this subject? THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Girlie1030 · January 2012

My BIL officiated for ours and it was awesome. You need to check the laws of the state you're getting married in to make sure your friend has met the requirements. In AZ, BIL was able to become an ordained minister on line and legally allowed to perform weddings.

mica178 · January 2012

I've been to a handful of weddings where a friend or family member officiated. I haven't heard of there being any problems, assuming you live in a state that recognizes ordainment by internet.

tenofcups4me · January 2012

For my first wedding, we asked my sister/MOH and the ex's best friend/best man to officiate. It worked out wonderfully! Like you, it sort of started as a joke with my sister and then we both kind of simultaneously realized we weren't really joking any more.

My ex and I wrote the whole ceremony, except the beginning where we left room for them to start the ceremony however they wanted and add their own personal words. The ex and I have since divorced, but people still talk about how wonderful our ceremony was.

You do, of course, need to make sure it's legal in your area.

LDYGTR13 · January 2012

*Advice

adamar15 · January 2012

LDY, maybe she was asking us to advise her. MAYBE.

StephBeanWed61502 · January 2012

Everything PPs have said is correct - it's fine as long as your state recognizes whatever type of ordainment your friend has (whether it's by internet or through her church or whatever). My uncle is marrying us, and I think it's cool. The only thing is, if she doesn't have previous experience marrying anyone, make sure she's comfortable with/prepared for that much public speaking. As long as she has a good script to follow and is comfortable in front of a crowd, she should be fine.

And for the love of the sweet baby Jesus, please ease up on the capslock and exclamation points.

rebarobert2012 · January 2012

I think it would be fine.

tpender13 · January 2012

We had a friend as our officiant, and it was great! We're not SUPER close to him, but he's known us as long as we've been a couple (we dated for seven years before getting married), and he was already ordained. We didn't really give him any direction with the ceremony, other than telling him that we wanted to do our own vows in addition to traditional "repeat after me" vows, and that we didn't want it to be religious. Since he knows us, he was able to put together a beautiful, super personal ceremony.

Heavens7thstar · January 2012

Thank you for all the suggestions! And LDY, that was not necessary.

adamar15 · January 2012

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_asking-friend-officiant-advise-please?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding BoardsForum:9Discussion:a8db4312-12eb-437f-b06a-9ebfb75201a0Post:aad1eae6-1d44-417e-bbeb-a920b623ff76">Re: Asking a friend to be my officiant!? ADVISE PLEASE!!!!</a>:
[QUOTE]Thank you for all the suggestions! <strong>And LDY, that was not necessary.</strong>
Posted by Heavens7thstar[/QUOTE]

Neither was that.

StephBeanWed61502 · January 2012

OP, I don't know about you, but I actually appreciate the spelling/grammar corrections - who wants to use or spell words incorrectly? Don't take it so personally.

MattsPenguin · January 2012

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_asking-friend-officiant-advise-please?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding BoardsForum:9Discussion:a8db4312-12eb-437f-b06a-9ebfb75201a0Post:c80a7156-f5b9-4cfb-9348-d3df2421872e">Re: Asking a friend to be my officiant!? ADVISE PLEASE!!!!</a>:
[QUOTE]*Advice
Posted by LDYGTR13[/QUOTE]

*consequences

LDYGTR13 · January 2012

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_asking-friend-officiant-advise-please?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:9Discussion:a8db4312-12eb-437f-b06a-9ebfb75201a0Post:aad1eae6-1d44-417e-bbeb-a920b623ff76">Re: Asking a friend to be my officiant!? ADVISE PLEASE!!!!</a>:
[QUOTE]Thank you for all the suggestions! <strong>And LDY, that was not necessary. </strong>
Posted by Heavens7thstar[/QUOTE]
I was trying to help you not make that silly mistake the rest of your life - which will make you look uneducated. I ADVISE you to learn the difference between advise and advice.<div>
</div><div>GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR PLANNING! <img src="http://cdn.cl9.vanillaforums.com/downloaded/ver1.0/content/scripts/tinymce/plugins/emotions/images/smiley-sealed.gif" border="0" alt="Sealed" title="Sealed" /></div>

MRSBJS · January 2012

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_asking-friend-officiant-advise-please?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding BoardsForum:9Discussion:a8db4312-12eb-437f-b06a-9ebfb75201a0Post:aad1eae6-1d44-417e-bbeb-a920b623ff76">Re: Asking a friend to be my officiant!? ADVISE PLEASE!!!!</a>:
[QUOTE]Thank you for all the suggestions! And <strong>LDY, that was not necessary.
</strong>Posted by Heavens7thstar[/QUOTE]

Evidently it was.

kellyupdegraff · January 2012

If your friend is clergy or a justice then I think it's cool. Otherwise you might want to make sure no one you care about would be offended. I don't go to weddings where someone got ordained on the internet and probably wouldn't want to continue the friendship. But that's just me. If you and your fiancé think it would be neat and your family and friends are on board then go for it. But you really need to check with your county clerk because lots of states only allow officiants who are recognized by the gov to do civil weddings and religious figures who have "an established ministry".

adamar15 · January 2012

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_asking-friend-officiant-advise-please?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding BoardsForum:9Discussion:a8db4312-12eb-437f-b06a-9ebfb75201a0Post:9c11b322-3988-4b55-8d5a-b51abcab052b">Re: Asking a friend to be my officiant!? ADVISE PLEASE!!!!</a>:
[QUOTE]If your friend is clergy or a justice then I think it's cool. Otherwise you might want to make sure no one you care about would be offended. <strong>I don't go to weddings where someone got ordained on the internet and probably wouldn't want to continue the friendship.</strong> But that's just me. If you and your fiancé think it would be neat and your family and friends are on board then go for it. But you really need to check with your county clerk because lots of states only allow officiants who are recognized by the gov to do civil weddings and religious figures who have "an established ministry".
Posted by kellyupdegraff[/QUOTE]

Uh, why?

leia1979 · January 2012

It varies by state/county. H's brother married us. He was deputized as a county marriage commissioner for a day (many counties in California offer this). No religious affiliation required--just paperwork and a small fee.

Definitely check out the options in your area.

kellyupdegraff · January 2012

Because it takes a lot of time and dedication to become clergy and receive ordination, so I guess I take it personally. Like, someone thinks so little of what I do and the time and education I've invested in the process that they think it's the same as paying $30 and printing off a sheet off the Internet. And I think when people get married they can go religious ceremony and/or civil and online ordination seems dishonest to the process. But if you don't know anyone who would be offended then it's really not a big deal. I might be projecting because I'm sensitive to the issue

tenofcups4me · January 2012

How would you even know ahead of time who was officiating a friend's wedding? It's not something people asked us about.

FWIW, I think internet ordination is silly. And we didn't have a drop of religion in our wedding, nor did we want any. But that was the only way to have someone we knew and cared about officiate our ceremony. Frankly, I don't think it should be the government's business who performs a wedding ceremony, but since they've made it their business, I have no problem making an end run around their silly rules.

StephBeanWed61502 · January 2012

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_asking-friend-officiant-advise-please?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding BoardsForum:9Discussion:a8db4312-12eb-437f-b06a-9ebfb75201a0Post:cf2772d1-a01d-41f8-bdfd-fb55888ef6fd">Re: Asking a friend to be my officiant!? ADVISE PLEASE!!!!</a>:
[QUOTE]Because it takes a lot of time and dedication to become clergy and receive ordination, so I guess I take it personally. Like, someone thinks so little of what I do and the time and education I've invested in the process that they think it's the same as paying $30 and printing off a sheet off the Internet. And I think when people get married they can go religious ceremony and/or civil and online ordination seems dishonest to the process. But if you don't know anyone who would be offended then it's really not a big deal. I might be projecting because I'm sensitive to the issue :)
Posted by kellyupdegraff[/QUOTE]

I'll be honest, this still makes no sense to me. Most of the people I know who have chosen Internet-ordained ministers for their ceremonies have done so precisely because the couple is not religious, and therefore it would be disingenous for them to engage in a religious ceremony. In some places, sure, you can get a judge to come out on a Saturday or Sunday and marry you if you don't want a religious ceremony, but in some places (like where I live) this just isn't done, so if you want to have a ceremony in front of family and friends (rather than a ceremony at the local courthouse, where they can't accommodate more than a handful of witnesses), an internet-ordained, non-religious person is your only option if you want to have a civil ceremony witnessed by your full wedding guest list.

No one is getting ordained <em>in your faith</em> online (at least as far as I know, any faith that requires the amount of education you've been through to become ordained isn't handing the designation out for $30 on the internet), so why the bug up your butt? It'd be like me getting upset that someone had a paralegal do something that an attorney could've done - a paralegal (who has less education than I, as an attorney, do) doing a task that I can also perform doesn't devalue my degree, and I'd have to be pretty insecure to think that it does.

kellyupdegraff · January 2012

That's sad that JOPs don't do out of courthouse weddings where you're from. I can definitely understand not wanting to get married in a courthouse with only five people.

StephBeanWed61502 · January 2012

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_asking-friend-officiant-advise-please?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding BoardsForum:9Discussion:a8db4312-12eb-437f-b06a-9ebfb75201a0Post:bd9d6f43-5534-42dd-a94c-560a49ad6a3d">Re: Asking a friend to be my officiant!? ADVISE PLEASE!!!!</a>:
[QUOTE]That's sad that JOPs don't do out of courthouse weddings where you're from. I can definitely understand not wanting to get married in a courthouse with only five people.
Posted by kellyupdegraff[/QUOTE]

They're allowed to, and will do it for friends, family, etc., but I think there's just such a huge volume of people getting married relative to the number of judges available that it would be ridiculous to try to have judges available on-demand for anyone who wants one. People who are ordained via internet or other untraditional methods fill a real gap where I live.

schmella · January 2012

I am not religious, and asking someone in the clergy to officiate my wedding would have been deceitful. Including myself and my husband, there were 36 people in attendance. We asked a friend to officiate and he got his accreditation online. He spent hours researching ceremony wording, sat with us for hours working to create a ceremony that reflected our relationship and values.

We had an incredibly intimate, beautiful, personal ceremony surrounded by our very nearest and dearest, and not one person in the room was a stranger. It was incredibly emotional, even spiritual, and the love in the room was palpable. And two of our guests were clergy members- they respected our decision to stay true to our beliefs and even took the time to tell our officiant that it was one of the nicest ceremonies they had ever witnessed.

Our other option would have been to stand in line at a courthouse. No thanks.

LilMissScareAll · January 2012

We had a friend (who got ordained online) perform our wedding. Neither of us are religious, so a church wedding was out of the question.

We got married in Vegas, so there was defiantly no shortage in ministers to perform the wedding for us if we wanted to hire them. It came down to us wanting someone who knew us personally and cared about us to be standing there with us, not some stranger we were giving a couple hundred bucks

ETA: we wrote our entire ceremony, so it made it very meaningful to us. Hiring someone, probably would not have allowed to add so much of ourselves into it.

trau308 · January 2012

my husband to be's best man is officianting. but the greatest part of this is he can wear his uniform. I am very excited for the cermony!

simplestlife · January 2012

In Los Angeles they actually have something called the "Deputy Commissioner for a Day Program" that allows regular people to be legally able to perform civil marriage ceremonies for one day. I don't know if they have something similar in other places, but you might want to check it out.

staceycaine · January 2012

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_asking-friend-officiant-advise-please?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding BoardsForum:9Discussion:a8db4312-12eb-437f-b06a-9ebfb75201a0Post:c80a7156-f5b9-4cfb-9348-d3df2421872e">Re: Asking a friend to be my officiant!? ADVISE PLEASE!!!!</a>:
[QUOTE]*Advice
Posted by LDYGTR13[/QUOTE]

Thank you.

wrdgirl · January 2012

Some people need to take whatever is sticking up their whatsits from their whatsits.

With that said, there is nothing wrong with having a friend officiate you. And there is nothing wrong with being ordained online. If this friend is that meaningful to you both then I think it's a really great idea

Having some "stranger" marry you is kind of weird. We actually had my father-in-law marry us because he is a pastor. And it was nice!

kellyupdegraff · January 2012

I'm sorry, was I out of line? The OP asked if there were any "bad consequences" and I thought I was offering one with the caveat of "now if this isn't a big deal to your crowd you're fine". Some clergy take umbrage offense to Internet ordination. (not JOPs or commissioners we're fine with that). Of course there's nothing wrong with it. It wouldn't bother me if people on the knot use them. I was talking about my circle on the off chance that your circle is anything like mine. I don't think that the "some people need to take whatever is sticking up their what sits from their whatsit" is called for. It seems unnecessarily unkind. I apologize if my tone seemed uppity or judgemental, I certainly didn't mean it that way.

StephBeanWed61502 · January 2012

Kelly, you kind of are being uppity and judgmental - you just told us that if your friends decided to be married by someone who was ordained in a non-traditional way (like on the internet) you would be so offended you would not go to their ceremony and you would end the friendship. That's clearly, obviously you judging your friends for their choice. You're free to pass whatever judgments you want, and to share those judgments on the internet, but "I worked hard for my degree and I'm so offended by internet-ordained ministers I don't go to ceremonies where they officiate and stop being friends with people who use them" is a judgment. Own it.

Asking a friend to be my officiant!? ADVISE PLEASE!!!!

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