Having a friend officiate

Celia may be off doing a wedding, so I'll chime in here.

Several times I've been asked to officiate at the last minute when a friend/relative backed out. I know Celia has said the same thing happens with her.

A personal friend may know too many personal things about the two of you. An aunt was allowed to speak at a wedding I officiated. She went on and on about the time the couple broke up! I only know what you want me to know. Unless you're 8 months pregnant and tell me the whole family knows you're pregnant, I'm not going to mention your growing family!

A close friend or relative may get too choked up to speak. I can hold it together even if the two of you are sobbing.

Celia and I both have been asked how long we've known our couples -- because we do great ceremonies. Celia writes each ceremony for each couple. I have a couple of templates and a wide choice of readings and customize each ceremony for the couple including their children and any unity celebration they want.

When I got married, we hired a civil officiant we knew who was a professional actor. I did not have to worry about him getting stage fright.

A professional can take care of the legalities and refer you to other vendors.

I'm curious about this as well. My fiance and I are not religious and don't particularly like the idea of having a minster/pastor/etc. officiate for us. We considered having a friend officiate and are currently leaning toward asking my grandmother to do it. Her late husband was a minster and married my parents. She has never done a wedding but has historically never had a problem with speaking in front of a crowd - particularly considered that more than half of the guests will be her family (we are having a small-ish ceremony with only family and very few close friends). The wedding is over a year away so we would absolutely be sure to write the dialogue, review with her, and practice ahead of time to be sure that there is theoretically no risk of showing up unprepared. I think she would be amazing and she is really special to both my fiance and I. However, I too have wondered if this will wind up being more trouble than anticipated. Laws in OK and KS (haven't finalized a location yet) seem to be fairly less strict compared to other states I've looked at.

Can anyone tell me what options there are for having a professional officiate who is not associated with a particular church?