So my fiance and I are still trying to figure out who will officiate our ceremony. Neither of us are really religious, and we are getting married at our reception space, so not in a church. Our initial thought was to have a friend become "licensed" to marry us, but checking with our state rules, it seemed like a very grey area, so to be safe we passed on that idea. Our next option was to find a Justice of the Peace; but the more I thought about that, the less I liked it. I really wanted the ceremony to be more personal and not held by a random stranger. This led me to my next thought...
Two years ago, my fiance's best friend passed away in a rather tragic accident. He would have been the best man in our wedding, and it's been pretty hard planning everything without him in it. He was a religious person: attended church weekly, was very close with his pastor, etc. When he passed away, we got to meet and spend some time with his pastor. My question then, I guess, is: would it be rude to ask his pastor to officiate our ceremony, even though we aren't a part of his church? Is there a way to have a pastor officiate a ceremony, but have it be relatively religion-neutral? I've tried looking up sample wedding ceremony scripts and programs with the context I'm looking for but haven't found anything. I have absolutely no idea if this is a big no-no or not a big deal. I really don't mean to offend anyone or come off disrespectful. The idea appeals to me because it would be more sentimental to have our friend's pastor officiate the ceremony - especially because he probably would have officiated our friend's wedding some day, and my fiance was the closest thing his buddy had to a brother. However, like I mentioned, even though our friend was religious, my fiance and I are not. A mention of God here and there is fine, but I know I do not want any Bible readings or anything like that.
Sorry this was so lengthy - I'm trying to be cautious of how I word things... again, not meaning to sound insincere or disrespectful! Any thoughts or feedback would be SO much appreciated! Thanks everyone.