If you had a friend/relative ordained online, which church?

polichik · July 2010

One of our close, non-clergy friends is going to be our officiant, and we want to make sure we're doing everything correctly now so that we don't mess up the legal stuff! If you did this, which online church did you use? Did you take any extra legal measures to make sure it was official?

kellyjellybelly · July 2010

I know it varies by state. We got married in Florida and our friend was ordained through Universal Church of Life. I believe Universal Life Chuch is another popular one.

I didn't do much to make sure it was legit. We did end up with a marriage certificate, so I guess it was

LauraT25 · July 2010

We used the Universal Life Church. I called the County Clerk's office in the county where we're getting married (same place we get the marriage license) and asked if he needed to do anything extra, since some places require people to register or something. In my county, nothing extra has to be done, but it's an easy phone call to make just to be sure.

michaelandjulie2 · July 2010

In my state, the officiant has to file proof of their license with the state and pay $10. Then his name magically appeared on the website of official officiants. We didn't know about this at first but it was really easy to do. I am not sure about your state though.

michaelandjulie2 · July 2010

It looks like in MN (if that is where your wedding is taking place) they have to file with the state as well. Sorry if you already knew that, just wanted to make sure!

https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/?id=517.05&year=2009

Istremene · July 2010

FI is ordained through the Universal Church of Life which is where they throw everyone who isn't with a more traditional religion or any religion. He has performed 3 of his friends wedding ceremonies and they are all quite legal.

Just be sure they get all the paperwork done early on. It saves alot of time and worry. One friend who was supposed to perform a ceremony didn't realize Las Vegas needs more lead time to get all the paperwork so they had to visit a chapel early that morning in Vegas to get married and still had the "ceremony" for friends and family but no one knew.

Also, I would recommend being sure they say something as "Please be seated" to the guests. During 1 of the 3 ceremonies FI left it out and some felt they had to stay standing.

tenofcups4me · July 2010

The first time I got married, my sister (MOH) and the ex's best friend (BM) both got ordained through the Universal Life Church to officiate our ceremony. At the time (2002), no paperwork was required in my state, though I'm not sure if that's since changed.

I do know that there was an issue in my state (PA) several years ago where someone was married by someone ordained online, got divorced, tried to make the case that they had never been married to begin with since it wasn't legal, and apparently won. At least at the time. I didn't follow what happened after that, and I can't swear I've got all the details right, but I do know it was a pretty big brou-ha-ha here. Not saying that to scare you, I promise (!) -- just to warn that you really need to check out the deal with your own state.

(FWIW, my state also has a self-uniting license -- where you don't need any officiant -- and that's what DH and I did. There had also been some controversy around that here and some counties refused to give those licenses to anyone who wasn't Quaker, which we're not.)

polichik · July 2010

Thanks for the help, ladies! Sorry for the post and run... I tried to post this on my blackberry earlier and got an error message, so I figured it didn't go through!

ETA: And Julie, I wasn't sure about that, so thanks for the link

brookelynpaisley · July 2010

Universal Life Church. In Arizona, the law is written very vaguely and is interpretated that anyone who complies with the rules for ordination of the church can perform a wedding ceremony. Since the ULC's only requirement is to put your name in a text box and hit enter, we were good to go.

polichik · July 2010

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_friendrelative-ordained-online-church?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:9Discussion:3dd07948-7b6f-4791-83a7-0f4d0ff55467Post:e2be8c76-4520-416a-ba41-4553dced1d07">Re: If you had a friend/relative ordained online, which church?</a>:
[QUOTE]Universal Life Church. In Arizona, the law is written very vaguely and is interpretated that anyone who complies with the rules for ordination of the church can perform a wedding ceremony. Since the ULC's only requirement is to put your name in a text box and hit enter, we were good to go.
Posted by brookelynpaisley[/QUOTE]

I actually just got ordained myself, to make sure it was easy. So, if anyone needs a happy little officiant... ;)

squirrly · July 2010

We used ULC too. In our state, the officiant doesn't have to register, but he is supposed to have proof available should the state want to audit his qualifications at any time. However, the statute here also says that if the bride and groom believed the officiant to be legally able to marry them that they have entered into marriage legally and the certificate will be issued/honored accordingly. BUT I did a lot of research myself because the people at the county clerk's office didn't have a clue when I called.

michaelandjulie2 · July 2010

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_friendrelative-ordained-online-church?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:9Discussion:3dd07948-7b6f-4791-83a7-0f4d0ff55467Post:6a44c6bd-ece8-4f73-a4b1-98e47fa96eb4">Re: If you had a friend/relative ordained online, which church?</a>:
[QUOTE]We used ULC too. In our state, the officiant doesn't have to register, but he is supposed to have proof available should the state want to audit his qualifications at any time. <strong>However, the statute here also says that if the bride and groom believed the officiant to be legally able to marry them that they have entered into marriage legally and the certificate will be issued/honored accordingly.</strong> BUT I did a lot of research myself because the people at the county clerk's office didn't have a clue when I called.
Posted by squirrly[/QUOTE]

<div>The MN law also said this, I noticed when I was reading. </div><div>
</div><div>Glad I could help! </div>

rubyjem00 · July 2010

We had our officiant ordained through the Spiritual Humanist Society. We absolutely wanted her to do it but she couldn't really get behind a typical religious "ordination." That was fine we us. So we did some research and found numerous officiants in my state that were Spiritual Humanists. We called the county clerk and they said that was fine.

It's just another option.

If you had a friend/relative ordained online, which church?

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