Non-religious officiant?

We googled non-affiliated officiant and we had about twenty officiants to choose from. If you use the vendor tab and include your location you should get some contacts.

We had a beautiful atheist wedding...she even included a Carl Sagan quote <3

Vendor tab.

A judge perhaps ?

We're planning on having a Justice of the Peace perform our ceremony. I'm not sure it's true for all states but look to see if the Justice of the Peace at the courthouse can perform outside ceremonies too.

We got several responses from https://www.findajp.com/

As well as the vendor search on WW.

Use the vendor tab

This website.,,

Go to the vendor tab. That's where I found mine and she has no affliction with a church just a women who started a business 20 years ago.

Our officiant is a family friend. She is religious, but knows that we do not want anything religious in our ceremony and is fine with that. Would your FS be okay with someone who has private religious views/affiliations performing non-religious ceremony?

(And before people say anything - Yes she is a professional and has performed many other ceremonies including FBIL's 7 years ago.)

We found our officiant here. She is a minister, but does secular weddings as well. She has been wonderful and gave us all sorts of resources for us to create our own ceremony.

Not all states have JP's, nor do all of them allow notaries to perform weddings. NJ doesn't allow either. And yes, there are states that make it all but impossible to use a non religiously ordained officiant, but that doesn't necessarily mean they'll do a religious ceremony.

Use the vendor tab, Ask your other vendors and your venues.(I'd say about half of our referrals come through our colleagues.) Contact Celebrant USA; you can search by state, and they are listed here (that's how I was trained and NJ has recently ruled that they can be legal by being trained as such).

Here's the thing. Your officiant's spiritual orientation shouldn't impact your ceremony unless they are part of a denomination that has prescribed requirements for what has to be included in a ceremony. Don't let the title 'minister' throw you off; the bottom line is that we have to be legal somehow, and almost all of my colleagues and my own officiants are ordained in one way or another. Do we include religion in our ceremonies? Occasionally if that's what suits our couples, but it's not an assumption when we start to talk to a couple. Our source materials for reading and content might include the bible, but it's more likely to include David Sedaris, Thoreau, Mary Oliver, Neil de Grasse Tyson or any one of a number of court decisions on gay marriage. One of my close friends is a rabbi who routinely does non religious ceremonies.

One of the best ways to find an officiant who suits you is to ask each other the questions you'd ask them. The big one is what do you want in the ceremony, as opposed to, 'we just don't want any religion'. 'Not-religious' covers a giant chunk of territory. Do you believe in some sort of higher power, overarching/transcendental/organizing force? Do you want mythological references? Do you believe all of this is just random? Or are you both from different traditions that you'd rather avoid colliding? All of those reasons are perfectly valid.

Keep in mind too that the absence of traditional religious content means that you and your officiant need to be very intentional in what is said and why it's said. A religious ceremony has a built in 'flow' to it and prose that is calculated to elicit a specific arc of emotions in both you and your guests. When that is not automatically in place, a writer, (which is part of what a good officiant is....) needs to be mindful of constructing a ceremony that doesn't fall back on cliche. This is part of why I'm such a fuss budget about cousins writing ceremonies....it's a challenge that not many, not even many pro officiants are up to. Does that make any sense?

When you're looking for an officiant, you'll find some recs, go to websites, see if the WEBSITE is well written, see what the officiant says about themselves (which honestly, shouldn't be a whole lot; the ceremony is about you. The 'about them' is the under water part of the iceberg. )

See if their language is inclusive. Note if it's cliche ("Your wedding your way!!! Kill me now!) and boring.

Sorry this got so long. Good luck! And start looking now. Great pro officiants are rare, and they book fast.

We asked one of our vendors for recommendations.

Justice of the Peace or most marriage officiants that you can hire do both non religious and religious ceremonies. Just don't go through a church.

We are having a friend perform our service=, we live in MN. Before we asked our friend, I searched for officiants and lots are willing to do a straight up civil service with no mention of religion. I agree with other posters, if you are not into religion do NOT go through a church. Best wishes!

Two friends of mine who are atheists had a humanist minister. It was perfect for them and the ceremony did not incorporate any religion or even much spirituality.

We used google and found a great JP. I have no idea if he personally is religious, but he did a beautiful job with a ceremony and there was not one ounce of religion in it. He personalized it for us and did everything we asked. Best vendor we had.

We are using a JP. I know nothing about his personal religious affiliation, but we told him upfront I'm atheist and FH is Jewish but aside from FH breaking the glass we are leaving religion out of our ceremony. He was very understanding of that. We are working on a script that any mention of religion or god has been edited out.