Getting ordained in PA

Did you try and goodie it? I would start there and see what you can find

Hi Kayla! Thanks, that's the first thing I did I just thought it'd be worth reaching out to the community in case anyone has done this before and is willing to share some insight.

PA is a very tricky state. You'll get conflicting opinions here and from any clerk that you call.

Find a pro who is legal there, get married, have your friend do a symbolic ceremony if you must, but don't screw around there.

And also think about why you want your friend to marry you. It's not as easy as it looks. (Had to. Sorry.)

Do not rely on google for this.

I recommend going to the Orphan's court (in Mont Co that's where we called) I gave a bride this information before and I know Celia and I have talked about this on here so it's really important you contact a third party for this. This is the info that was given to us about online ordained ministers

I also would advise you to hire a pro. First, the law is not clear or settled in PA regarding online ordinations, and the legality of such marriage ceremonies may be county specific. The statute is ambiguous and has been interpreted both to include and not include online ordination. The ONLY detail of the wedding that has to occur for it to be a legal marriage is that the officiant must be authorized by your local law to solemnize the wedding, and the officiant must include the necessary legal language in the ceremony for a legal union to occur in your state/county. You don't want to leave this to chance based on a google search or a rando on the internet saying it's okay.

Second, we did not hire a pro, and while our ceremony was fabulous (and we received tons of compliments), if I had to do it over, I would not have asked my friend. It is VERY hard to create a personalized and beautiful ceremony. It is also VERY hard to deliver that ceremony flawlessly plus smoothly dealing with whatever distractions or snags that occur. In my case, it was a sound system that had interference from passing boats (as we were next to water). Another example- my mom went to a wedding where the friendor officiant forgot to tell people to sit down after the bride's processional, so they stood for the entire ceremony and couldn't see anything. I'm sure you can find other examples if you search the threads on this forum.

My friend is a great public speaker with tons of experience, including being a service leader and delivering sermons in front of a 150+ congregation (our UU church). She also has tons of service planning experience (as we have planned services together). But I ended up creating most of our ceremony (except the homily that my friend wrote and I edited) because she wanted to make sure it was exactly what H and I wanted, and she did not feel comfortable starting from scratch without input from me. She also was super stressed out at the thought of messing up our wedding - to the point that she didn't even invite a plus one even though she didn't know anyone else at the wedding because she "just wanted to focus on the ceremony." She was honored we asked her to officiate, but I think she would have been happier being a guest.

Moral of the story - hire a pro, and let your best friend support you as a guest.

Go to the office of the county you are getting married. you can even technically marry yourselves in pa. i dont know the details but.

SnowQueen brings up a point - in PA I thought Quaker marriage was allowed (regardless of your religious affiliation, or lack thereof) where the couple technically marries themselves, but a friend (or professional) could serve as a master of ceremonies, so to speak. Any pros able to confirm the validity of that rumor?

Not a pro, but DH and I were married under a self-uniting license in PA. Technically, the self-uniting license is for those who are members of a denomination where there is no clergy, such as the Quakers or Ba’hai. However, since the issuance of a marriage license is a government function, county clerks are not permitted to ask questions about a couple’s faith when they apply for the license (separation of church and state right there). A few years back, an atheist couple out in western PA were denied a self-uniting license; the ACLU sued on their behalf, and won. We live in eastern PA, and there are a fair number of Quaker meetings, so the county clerk offices in this area (Philadelphia, Montgomery, Berks, Bucks, Chester, and Northampton) issue self-uniting licenses without any questions, as long as the couple lets them know upon making the application, so they can prepare the right paperwork. Some counties charge a few extra dollars (ours did not). The only difference was that instead of an officiant’s signature, we needed two witnesses (usually our county does not require witnesses, just the officiant). Our marriage certificate looks just like any other in PA, except for a small box at the bottom that Is ticked for a self-uniting marriage.

As for our ceremony, we wrote it ourselves, and had a good friend act as the “emcee.” He said some introductory words, then I said some words to H, then he said some words to me. We involved friends and family in our vows; we had 5 people stand and ask us “Do you promise XYZ?” or “Will you XYZ?” where XYZ was something we were promising to each other or our marriage. We replied “We do!” or “We will!” as appropriate. We exchanged rings, then the emcee said a few concluding words before we macked out a bit and everyone cheered . Honestly, if you weren’t paying attention, you would have missed that instead of “I now pronounce you husband and wife,” the emcee said “You have declared yourselves to be married to each other.”

It worked for us. We had a small wedding party, only 2 on each side. My parents are both deceased, and I have only 2 relatives to speak of, so there wasn’t much to manage in terms of wedding party/family. DH’s parents were seated before the processional began. We had a DOC that helped us with the rehearsal, so everyone knew where to go and what to do. Music was simple, just a bagpiper that has played hundreds of weddings; we took our cues (gents’ entry, ladies’ entry, bride’s entry) from his music changes. It was pretty much perfect for us, but there were indeed a lot of moving pieces that had to be considered, from the legalities to the selection of the emcee to the logistics of the ceremony. You need to be 100% confident about all of those things before you take this route.