Best website to become ordained?

I would hire a professional. That's my advice.

MIne too. Just being legal doesn't mean being good. And you'll be on here twenty times with questions he can't answer.

Please dont use family or friends for your wedding. Use a professional. Someone who has been performing weddings for a while and it is their job. I understand the setiment of wanting a family member to marry you, but unless they do it professionally, please reconsider. What if they freeze up the day of? Not everyone can create and perform a ceremony, and to me the ceremony is the most important part of your wedding day. Its about you and your SO coming together and should represent you. Not just anyone can do that.

If you do decide to go with him, at least make sure you have a contract that states what will happen if he suddenly cabt perform the ceremony. Most professionals will have referrals in place for such an event and will be responsible for finding you a replacement if they have to cancel.

Universal Ministries. I know multiple people who got ordained and legally married people from that site.

Https://www.themonastery.org/ordination

I would check if your state accepts them, they have that information on their website, and check with your county clerk

Oh No. Hire a professional.

We are having a family member marry us. I think she was ordained thru universal life ministry. Im not worried how she'll do, everything will be written for her.

Its a lot to do with delivery not just reading off a piece of paper.

The IRS has shut down a lot of these for tax evasion. Please get a professional.

Please be wary of this. My FH and I wanted to have our mutual friend marry us. She was all ready to become ordained online only to find out recent legislation had passed that would mean if she married us it would NOT be legal. We found this out after meeting with a real officiant at my mother's request. It's 100% worth it to hire a professional. You don't want to find out AFTER the wedding that you marriage isn't legal!

You all keep stressing legality, which is great, but good officiating is so much more than that.

It's building the processional

Knowing ettiquette in sticky situations

Sourcing readings

Sometimes blending religions, cultures, dramatic families

Filling out and filing licenses

Fixing screwups

Knowing the right language to use that MAKES it legal

Not boring the piss out of people with cut and paste chunks from the internet

Showing up in any and every case (though I do love it when they bail, which they do with alarming regularity)

Talking you off the ledge because it's not the blind leading the blind. Letting you be a couple instead of a ceremony coordinator

Working effectively with venue personel (who generally cannot stand inexperienced officiants) and other vendors (ditto).

Yes, in many states almost everyone can be ordained, but that is just the tip of the iceberg and the thing is, you won't know unti it's too late.

As for the 'best' part? There is no best. If a state accepts it, a state accepts it,but there is no training whatsoever. No no best. All the same.

Celia, on this board, I have read etiquette faux paus committed by professionals. My favorite was the DOC who suggested with divorced parents, that dad give the bride away (fine with that) and then, so he could sit with his wife, HIS WIFE, on the aisle in the front row. Then MOB, who had raised the bride, have to sit next to the SM, and be further away.

Apparently the DOC could not figure out how to get dad seated unobtrusively.

I explained, NO, the options are Dad circle around to the far end of the front row and sit there with his wife, or dad sits in second row. BUT MOB, who raised the bride gets first dibs on the front row.

This is why there is a rehearsal dinner to fix all these snafus.

No, that's not why there is a rehearsal dinner. A processional should be in place by then and a quick run through, if one is even done, is done to thank the people in the BP, give gifts, possibly make speeches. It's not to fix stuff. At that point, it's really too late to fix anything but the order.

I would never have suggested that Karen. Because I know what I'm doing. And that DOC was not a pro or she could have figured that out.

And as much as I'd love the tax evasion angle, it's really not a factor unless someone REALLY stupid sets up a fake church without the proper steps/documentation/qualification.

Celia- There is another one that needs your help. "Ceremony Help"

Universal life church

NM i think she hid it, she really needed advice. She wanted a special ceremony but its her friends first time doing a ceremony

I would start with the state website. My aunt is marrying us with a one day officiant license through the state of Massachusetts.