Asking officiant

Honestly? Leading Sunday school is nothing like doing your ceremony. Being an elder in the church has nothing to do with it either. Creating and performing a ceremony is a completely different animal.....

I had a panicked mother call me several years ago (in secret, lol) . Her daughter wanted the grandfather ( a retired pastor) officiate and the mother wasn't really convinced it could work for either the ceremony or the grandfather. The pressure to create and perform a ceremony is a lot, and she didn't want to put that responsibility on him.

I ended up doing the ceremony, and her grandfather processed with me, did an opening prayer, a scripture reading and a blessing at the end. I really enjoyed collaborating with him; he was wonderful, but I know that not having the pressure to create, perform and solemnize the ceremony was a real relief to him. He really enjoyed himself too.

So think about that, and if you still want to ask him, just ask him.

We asked one of our best friends, as my fiance did his wedding and we aren't having a religious ceremony, and we made a nice dinner and had him and his wife over! It was casual but still an important moment of course!

@Celia I definitely do not want him to stress, and I know he would be completely honest with me about his willingness to do this. I do feel like this is something he would love to do, and I honestly can't imagine anyone else doing it. However, I would never pressure him either and if he decides to decline, I will love having him as a guest

We had a family friend of H's family as our officiant. She did BIL's wedding 7 years ago so I know she has been doing them for friends and family at least that long. H just asked her when he was spending a weekend w his dad and brother and they got together with her and some other family friends. Nothing fancy.

I wrote our entire script, by pulling stuff I liked from ceremonies she had done before and googling for ideas. There is no reason to be concerned about your family member's ability to put together a ceremony if you're willing to just do it yourself and make it what you want. Just make sure if your state has any legal language that has to be included, that it's there. I gave our officiant my first draft a couple weeks before the wedding, then we went back and forth a couple of times as she suggested edits. I was really happy with how everything went.

Your first step should be to find out who can legally marry you. Depending on where your ceremony is there's a chance he might not be able to do it. We had a relative marry us and it was the best decision we made. My husband and I also wrote our ceremony together. It was challenging but we loved how it turned out.

Me and FH are having a pastor we have both known since we were kids marry us. He's had a big influence on both our lives as well. When we asked him, we called him up and asked if we could meet to talk and catch up. When we got there we chatted for a while and when we got to that "what's new with you moment" we told him we were getting married and that we would like him to marry us because of how much we has impacted both of us. He was overjoyed and it was a really beautiful moment.

@Linda That's so nice for you. My twin sister asked me to track down priests from our childhood. All of them are in jail.

@OP I'm 100% with Celia on this. Never friendor one of the biggest and most important vendors for your wedding day. I know it's family so it feels different but it really isn't. Some of my friends growing up had their family members who are associated with various levels of the church lead the ceremonies and they've always been awkward, poorly paced, organized strangely, and sometimes just downright boring. If you want to go this way, I'd let him bring it up. If he doesn't just find a professional. It is a lot of stress to build a meaningful, organized, and personal ceremony. It takes finesse, experience, and skill. The fact a person is religious does not mean they possess any of these skills. As Celia said, perhaps honoring him with a prayer, reading, or even leading a blessing before dinner could be a great way to honor his "spiritual" input into your lives.

My dad has officiated for all of my married siblings except my sister who eloped (so 4 of us so far). For me, that IS tradition and what I'll be doing. Having said that, I agree that it's something I wouldn't have asked him to do if it wasn't already a thing for my family and I didn't already know he'd do a good job (mostly because I'd hate to have him feel obligated and stressed out about it).

At the end of the day though, you know him and his ability better than any of us, and should make the decision that's right for you! ETA: I just realized I did the one thing that drives me crazy - I focus on previous poster comments and missed the entire point of your post. So I apologize, and to address your question a safe bet is always a sweet conversation. I'm a little cheesy , so i might make a card that says something like "_____, we're getting closer and closer to our wedding day, and I have a question for you if i may. You've been such a special part of my life, and now both of ours too - we'd love nothing more than for you to perform our 'I DOs'! Will you be our officiant? Love, ____". It'll be perfect whatever you decide!

I do appreciate all of the advice you all have given. I am however, going to go forward with my plans of speaking to him about it next week. Obviously this is completely up to him and if he or I feel that it won't be the right thing to do, we won't. I do think he would be perfect at this though. I know he is not a career officiant, but he is incredibly well spoken and good at delivering ministry. I know it takes a lot more than that to officiate a wedding, which is why there will be plenty of discussion beforehand and planning together. If it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out and I will most likely end up having the ceremony at my home church instead.

We are having a "friendor" marry us. We are having someone important to us get ordained for a day for the sole purpose of marrying us. I don't really understand the objections of people here to this. I have been to 4 or 5 weddings where the bride and groom has chosen someone meaningful to marry them as opposed to a random stranger who happens to be "good" at performing ceremonies and it always seemed much more meaningful. And I've never seen the person's "friendor" officiant do a horrible job. However, I've been to several weddings where the professional officiant has done a horrible job and/or completely missed the mark of the couple! I think it is beautiful to have an important person marry you, as long as you trust them and give them some structure and guidance for putting the ceremony together. I know for us we are planning a short and non religious ceremony. I completely trust the person we asked (my cousin, who is also a close friend of my FH) to be able to handle it

I also laughed out loud at the "whatever" from Celia. Especially because she is one of these professional vendors.

We are going with my campus champlain from undergrad. He has been vital to my spiritual growth as well as my growth as a person.

My future wife and I have talked about this a lot!! We are asking someone close to her in the lab she works at to officiate for us. He has done several weddings but is online ordained and only does it for family and friends. We chose him because we know he'll make it fun, personal, and meaningful. It was important to me to not get married by some random stranger, but rather someone who can appropriately advise and guide us in our marriage while being there to make our wedding official. I see nothing wrong with doing it either way, but this is the way that's important to me!

All that out of the way, I have searched and searched for cute and fun ways to ask him to be our officiant and google has given me nothing. At the end of the day, everything I have found seems too cheesy for such an important question. I think we are just going to casually bring it up the next time she's in lab and can find a moment to talk to him to be honest with you. And then we will give him a nice gift for being part of our day if he accepts. Taking him to dinner also sounds like a nice idea and a bit more formal instead of just randomly asking!

Op, just make sure you have the legal stuff all taken care of. I was going to have my brother marry us. He is also an elder in his church, and actually does a guest sermon every couple of months so I had no doubt about his ability, but the legal hoops he'd have had to go through in our state was too big an ask. He did a reading instead. However, I am of the UO that ceremonies performed by someone the couple actually knows versus a stranger they hired off the internet, are more meaningful. At least that's been my experience with the ones I've actually seen. I would just make sure you're not putting pressure on him. He might not feel comfortable with the role or responsibility.

@OP, we are having FH's Uncle officiate our wedding. He's married 4 couples in the family and has done several through his church, I'm confident in his performance and ability to put together a lovely ceremony. I would make sure you have all the legal stuff figured out and make sure he is legally able to marry someone.

I think it's sweet honestly. One of my old coworkers had her grandfather officiate her ceremony and it was such a tear jerker!!!

I think the legal stuff will be fairly simple to figure out. I'm in Nebraska and from the preliminary research I've done, getting ordained is pretty easy online and there aren't any real legal hoops to jump through to get the license.

I was going to have my sister officiate. I found out she couldn't legally do it where we were getting married so I hired a pro. I am so so thankfully to have gone this route. Our officiate was personable, professional, and I had no stress about it. Asking someone who doesn't routinely perform ceremonies is a massive ask - think of all the pressure and planning it takes. My sister was so happy to give a MOH speech.

@Haley, your comment was inappropriate and rude. It has been flagged, please read the CG located in the sticky post to familiarize yourself with the rules.

Haley, I'm married too. I know that before I was, I appreciated the advice from posters on here who had actually planned a wedding since they had gone through it all already.

I think you should just sit down and ask him. I'm sure he'd be honored.

It's becoming more common to have someone the couple personally knows officiate their wedding.

Celia is an officiant by trade and is defending her profession; I get it. If my career were in jeopardy of becoming almost obsolete, I'd advocate super hard for it too.

ETA: That being said, while I understand her position, I do not agree with it.

Also my comment was in response to her first comment, not the "whatever" response.