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Dj and officiant recomendations

Pghmrsw14Pghmrsw14 member
First Anniversary 5 Love Its First Comment
in Pennsylvania-Pittsburgh
Hi ladies! We have just about everything planned for our wedding next June. Two things we still need are a dj and someone to marry us. We are not members of any church (neither one of us are from Pittsburgh) so finding someone has become difficult. They don't have to be a priest or minister. We will gladly take a judge. The other problem is we are on a tight budget. Can anyone recommend either one for us?
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Re: Dj and officiant recomendations

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    emilyb213emilyb213 member
    5 Love Its Name Dropper First Anniversary First Answer
    In Pennsylvania, you can do what is called a self-uniting marriage, where you don't need an ordained officiant to perform the ceremony. There is a specific self-uniting marriage license you have to request at the courthouse, and then you can have a friend or family member "officiate" for you. This is what we did for our wedding, since we didn't want a total stranger marrying us and we're not religious. We used a self-uniting license, worded our vows appropriately, and had my aunt act as an officiant/emcee for our ceremony. PM me if you have any questions!!
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    jenn77bjenn77b member
    First Comment First Answer 5 Love Its Name Dropper
    edited September 2013
    emilyb213 said:
    In Pennsylvania, you can do what is called a self-uniting marriage, where you don't need an ordained officiant to perform the ceremony. There is a specific self-uniting marriage license you have to request at the courthouse, and then you can have a friend or family member "officiate" for you. This is what we did for our wedding, since we didn't want a total stranger marrying us and we're not religious. We used a self-uniting license, worded our vows appropriately, and had my aunt act as an officiant/emcee for our ceremony. PM me if you have any questions!!
    I'm interesteed in this as an option, but when researching it on the internet it seems as if this option of self-uniting marriage can be quite conflicting depending on what county you apply in.  What county did you get your self-uniting license in?  Did they give you any issue whatsoever?  In some things I've read they've warned that there may be some dispute as to whether this license is actually valid/recognized.
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    jnissajnissa member
    5 Love Its First Comment First Anniversary Name Dropper
    I can answer this as we actually did a self-uniting ceremony last year (a year before our wedding) so that I could begin the process of getting my EU citizenship and we could both reduce health insurance costs.

    In Alleghany County - it's super simple. You just go to the same office you would go to downtown to get your regular license. They simply issue you a different one. You mail it back in and then 30 days later you are legally married.

    We did *a lot* of research on this since the whole point of doing it was to speed up some legal processes. The marriage license actually *has* to be legally recognized anywhere, but that doesn't mean that every county has to offer it. If you moved to a county that doesn't offer it, they couldn't invalidate your marriage and if they tried to do so would lose in court. 
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    lfelllfell member
    First Answer First Anniversary First Comment
    I agree with the Rev. Mark suggestion. He did my wedding 1 week ago and I had so many compliments on how personalized he made it. 
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    Pghmrsw14Pghmrsw14 member
    First Anniversary 5 Love Its First Comment
    Thanks for the advice everyone! I met with Mark Thomas, from Thomas entertainment and really liked what he had to offer. We are having our wedding outside, and our reception inside at the same place. He gave us a price of 1000 for the whole day( wedding, and 5 hours of reception). My fiancé knows we are trying to save/ cut the costs as much as possible. He suggested we just do the ceremony music ourselves to save $250. Anyone do this in the past with success. I'm all for diy but this sounds like I'd rather pay the 250 and have the peace of mind of having it go well. Also has anyone worked with Thomas entertainment before? He had lots of thank you cards to show but would love to hear someone that has worked with him. :)
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    clickchick311clickchick311 member
    First Anniversary 5 Love Its Combo Breaker First Comment
    Mark from a Simple Vow is doing ours. He's a good friend also :)

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    betsyray85betsyray85 member
    First Anniversary First Comment
    We used Joel Lindsey for our music - he is both a musician and a DJ so he did live music during our cocktail hour. His wife, Amy, was our officiant. I highly recommend both of them as they did a wonderful job of personalizing our wedding, and they were extremely affordable.
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