Family member or friend becoming ordained for the wedding?

Unless you have a friend or family member who has done this before you should consider hiring a professional officiant. I know it seems like it’s so easy but it’s a huge responsibility and can be nerve wracking for someone who is not experienced and comfortable speaking in front of large groups. I’be seen post after post where someone asked a friend or family member who agreed because the didn’t want to say no or thought it was no big deal and backed out at the last minute.

My brother in law (husband’s brother) was our officiant. We asked him because he’s done this about 10 times already. He’s an attorney by day but is also a PT actor, an amazing speaker and writer, and we knew our ceremony would be uplifting, funny and personal.

We are having FH cousin do it. She got ordained online. I recently found out that the laws vary from state to state, so you should look up what the local laws are.

We are having my Godfather do it. We did confirm with the county where we are getting married that it is legal. We helped him get ordained online in 30 seconds. Literally.

It's not too difficult, but like a PP said make sure it is someone close to you who is comfortable with public speaking. Definitely call wherever you are getting your marriage license to make sure it will be legal. If you found the perfect person and know it is going to be legal, there are a lot of great websites out there to help put together your ceremony script. Me and FH spent two nights putting it together and reading through it and had a blast.

Hi! I am doing this is well. My friend that is officiating has never done this before but she is the director of customer service for a huge company and has to do major presentations often. I have minimal worries about her public speaking abilities. I would just check with the laws in your area. For those that have done this, what websites have you used?

Definitely check local laws! In some states, a wedding officiated by someone ordained online is clearly invalid. In others, no court has yet ruled on the validity of such a marriage, so it could be held invalid years later--e.g., on death, divorce, or bankruptcy--when it would be too late to fix the problem. Unless it is 100% clear in your state that such marriages are valid, it's worth hiring an officiant. You really don't want to go through the whole expense of a wedding, only to discover you still aren't really married.

If you are getting married in Wisconsin, you should be fine:

http://www.co.marathon.wi.us/Portals/0/Departments/CLK/Documents/MarriageOfficiant.pdf

But if not, check the laws where you are getting married.

Check your laws first! We toyed around with the idea of having one of our friends get a license because our officiant went MIA and we needed one ASAP. A lot of family and friends would have done it if we would have asked but no one really wanted to. My friends wanted to enjoy being bridesmaids, our family wanted to enjoy watching us get married, and I just didn't want anyone to "work" on our wedding day. Luckily we found another officiant in time. Long story short if you do ask someone to do it make sure it's something they'd actually like to do instead of something they feel obligated to.

I would contact your local Facebook group to see if there are any suggestions. You can ask for a retired catholic priest.

I think it's a great idea to ask a friend or family member, just make sure it is someone who has experience speaking in front of a crowd.

My brother is getting ordained just for our ceremony. He is a FANTASTIC public speaker (he used to do theater, and is now going into politics lol) so he has plenty of experience speaking in front of crowds and is very comfortable doing so.

We decided to do this not because we "couldn't" find an officiant, but because after speaking with a few potential officiants, realized it would be so much more meaningful to have our officiant be someone who is significant to us. I love that we are doing this, and my brother is so excited and honored.

Like I said though, I do think it is a great idea, but make sure you ask the right person. Definitely someone who has experience speaking in front of crowds, and definitely someone laidback who doesn't tend to take control of things like this. It would be very easy for your officiant to take too much power and try to dictate how you entire ceremony should go. Knowing my brother's personality, there is no way this will be a problem for us. He told us to write a script, and he'll read it lol. We asked him to add a paragraph of his own to surprise us with and he's going to do that, but it is not his personality at all to try to take over an event like that. Running the ceremony gives this person a lot of power... just make sure you give it to a person who will not take advantage!

Also, not sure what state you are from but make sure to check your state laws to make sure this is legal! I spoke with our town clerk, she said it was fine but to check with the Department of Health. I have an email from the DOH that says it is fine in our state for someone ordained online to officiate, so it shouldn't be a problem for us (we live in NJ). But different states have different laws on this, so be sure to call your town clerk and check on this.

He is getting ordained from American Marriage Ministries online. My FH has a friend who's officiant got ordained on this site too... he's been legally married for 3 months now lol so I know that site is legit.