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VIP September 2023

No Officiant?

Erin, on August 19, 2019 at 1:36 PM Posted in Planning 0 18

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I live in Colorado where it’s perfectly legal to officiate your own wedding and sign and turn in your own marriage certificate. We’re on a budget and looking to cut costs in any way we can, and we are considering officiating our own wedding.

Does anyone one have any experience with this? My main concern is that neither of us have been to a ton of weddings, and we don’t have a set religious tradition to draw from so writing and officiating our own wedding would be a challenge, and our guest (most of whom are from out of state, and those in Colorado don’t know you can do it yourself so there might be some confusion.

If we officiate our our own wedding we’d end up saving about $500-$600 on officiant fees, which we could really use.

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18 Comments

Latest activity by Ivy ORP, on August 19, 2019 at 4:08 PM

VIP June 2020
Jessica · on August 19, 2019 at 1:42 PM
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Can you have a friend/ family member get ordained online and have them do it? I think it cost like $30. You can google wedding officiant layouts (or something like that) and you will get a bunch of things. My FH is ordained and did a wedding for a friend, that's where he got his "speech" from.
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Legend July 2019
MrsD · on August 19, 2019 at 1:43 PM
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I would at least have a friend or family member do it. I think it would be odd to perform your own ceremony? I've never seen it before at least.
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Legend November 2019
Caytlyn · on August 19, 2019 at 1:44 PM
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I agree with PPs, I would still have a friend or family perform the ceremony.
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VIP October 2020
Samantha · on August 19, 2019 at 1:46 PM
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I agree with PPs, you should ask a friend. It’s very low cost and will help the ceremony flow much better.
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VIP September 2019
Yam · on August 19, 2019 at 1:50 PM
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We’re having a friend do ours, she’s never done it before so we’ll be kind of winging it but it’s a casual ceremony. I think doing it yourselves is fine but it might not work with a big formal ceremony. I’d include this in your ceremony programs so guests aren’t confused.
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Master September 2019
Colleen · on August 19, 2019 at 1:53 PM
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I agree look into a friend or family.
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VIP September 2023
Erin · on August 19, 2019 at 1:55 PM
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I don’t know if any of my friends would be willing (I don’t have a whole ton of them and none are in Colorado xD) and I wouldn’t trust my family for a second with something that important (complicated family dynamic).
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Champion October 2009
2d Bride · on August 19, 2019 at 2:02 PM
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You could have a friend conduct the ceremony. That person wouldn't even have to be ordained online, because the legal part would be taken care of by the two of you just filing the necessary paperwork.
But if you don't have a friend to do it, Google "self uniting wedding ceremony script." That's the technical name, and there are scripts out there.
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Dedicated May 2020
Cara · on August 19, 2019 at 2:07 PM
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I think that could be really cool and unique. You’ll certainly need to be very creative in developing your own script.

Heres a sample led one I found online.
https://thecraftyesquire.com/2015/11/19/our-self-uniting-wedding-ceremony-script/

Keep us posted on how it works out if you decide to go this route!
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Devoted November 2020
Desiree · on August 19, 2019 at 2:17 PM
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I'm in Colorado too! We are having a family member “officiate” the wedding but we will be the ones signing off on it
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VIP September 2023
Erin · on August 19, 2019 at 2:21 PM
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Glad someone else is choosing to go an unusual route xD my FMIL looked at me like I was crazy when I mentioned we were considering not hiring an officiant.
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Devoted November 2020
Desiree · on August 19, 2019 at 2:28 PM
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Haha they are so expensive and we aren’t religious so it sounded like a great way to make our ceremony more intimate
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VIP September 2023
Erin · on August 19, 2019 at 2:32 PM
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I completely agree. I can’t bring myself to pay so much money for a someone to stand up there and marry us for about 30 minutes, and then tip and feed them after as well. It’s insane.
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VIP October 2019
Ivy ORP · on August 19, 2019 at 3:35 PM
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I'll be honest, I'm an officiant and while I joked about performing our wedding, there is no way I really wanted to do it even if I could. I would recommend having a friend or family member do it. There are tons of exampled online that you could sort through to find what you like, then piece it together to suit you. We asked a good friend of ours to perform our handfasting ceremony and he was thrilled to do it. Whatever you decide, good luck in your planning.
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VIP October 2019
Ivy ORP · on August 19, 2019 at 3:36 PM
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BTW, $500 is an obscene amount. The only time I ever charged that much was for a wedding 4 hours away that I would need to get a hotel room for.
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VIP September 2023
Erin · on August 19, 2019 at 3:46 PM
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I appreciate the perspective I’ll ask around and see if anyone is interested in doing it, it’s tough since most of our guests are out of state. I thought it was an obscene amount, but that’s what every person on here that I’ve seen seems to be charging in my area, which is insane.
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Master October 2019
Meghan · on August 19, 2019 at 4:00 PM
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Like others have said, I think you should find a friend or family member to do it. Officiating your own wedding sounds strange and I also think this would be very disruptive to the flow of your wedding.
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VIP October 2019
Ivy ORP · on August 19, 2019 at 4:08 PM
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I think it could be done, but based on what you're telling me, I would suggest asking someone. Even if you still want to sign the license yourself. Good luck!
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