Officiant Advice- No Officiant, family officiate?

Hire a professional. You still have plenty of time. I'm sure you could find one that's still available.

I agree that the transitions may be odd. You would also have to consider how comfortable the people you are thinking of having are when talking in front of others. And while you are planning more informal, there would still be a need to be somewhat formal when officiating a ceremony. Also, would these people want to participate in officiating or would they rather enjoy the moment more as a guest?

Hire someone.

Hire someone.

And really? Just two days after and he won't?

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I would also recommend hiring someone. We hired an officiant and were able to completely 100% customize our ceremony. We are both Christians, but don't belong to a church. I feel like a lot of people feel officiants are for people who aren't religious but that's not the case! It was wonderful to be able to put our favorite readings and traditions into our ceremony even though we didn't get married in a church.

FH and I attended the wedding of some friends of his from high school recently, and they had one of their close friends get ordained and officiate. It was absolutely beautiful. I don't know how it would go if you had multiple people doing it, and you'd obviously want to consider how all the people involved handle speaking in front of folks. The girl who did it at the wedding we went to was obviously a natural at public speaking, so it went great, but you'd know better than any of us would how good your parents are at that kind of thing.

I plan on having one of my uncles officiate our wedding. FH and I will be writing the ceremony (currently in the process of doing that right now) and then all he has to do is stand up in front of everyone and read it all! He's big, tall, loud voice, and hilarious. I couldn't imagine having a stranger do it for us... but that's just personal opinion.

I'm not sure about having two people do it... but try it out! I don't see why it wouldn't work unless YOU and FH don't like it! Get them together and have them practice doing it with you and FH in the room and then you'll know if it flows like you want it to!!

Definitely hire someone-- I wonder if you childhood pastor could recommend someone they know or one of the associate pastors from the church they are retiring from?

If you have to ask, hire someone. The only times I've seen this work well is VERY small, intimate ceremonies where one immediate family member is super outgoing/charasmatic and volunteered. Doesn't sound like this is the case and you'd be asking them to do it.

My brother was our officiant and he did my older brother's wedding as well. He was great, he is really outgoing and charasmatic like e= said. Our ceremony was like 10 minutes. And ended with 'I meow pronounce you man and wife'

I think having family / friend officiate for you is perfectly fine, but like all the PP said, it should be someone who's good at it, and will enjoy doing it.

FH and I are having the friend who introduced us together officiate for us. She's known us for several years, and hosted events for non-profit organizations before, so we know she'll be comfortable doing it. I know my parents wouldn't be, they are having a hard time with the speech already !

HIRE SOMEONE! As a child of a pastor I can't tell you how many cringe worthy weddings I have been to when someone asked a person who isn't used to doing weddings. They tend to talk about themselves a lot and can be fairly awkward. If nothing else, a judge or attorney would work but I would sincerely advise against friends or even parents doing the ceremony. They also can't enjoy the ceremony or really perform the parents of the bride or groom duties. As I mentioned my father is a pastor and he will not be doing our ceremony. The pastor that is the new pastor at the church my dad retired from is doing the wedding. My dad will do a prayer or something small to participate.

ETA: Even if you write something out, people get stage fright and or are terrible readers, when they read out loud.

What do your parents think of this? I actually saw a wedding with 2 officiants work once. One was the bride's aunt and one was the groom's good friend. But here's the thing: they were both professionals. Bride's aunt was a minister and groom's friend was a celebrant. They obviously planned who would do which parts of the ceremony and it flowed well. However, the bride's aunt is extremely close to the bride and she got choked up when she was talking about the bride's character and childhood. She needed to take a minute to collect herself before continuing. Do you really think your parents are good enough public speakers that they could do this without getting nervous, flustered, or emotional? Probably not. Hire a professional. This is the most important part of your wedding.

One of my old friends is going to be our officiant. She has actually been an officiant for 3 other weddings. She's a realtor and she's amazing at speaking in front of people. I honestly couldn't have asked for anyone better. Other than Cecilia of course lol.

Also depending on the denomination some pastors can't perform rites after they have retired. We are super lucky and my parents have a great relationship with the pastor that took over his church and it's also been 2 years since my dad retired.

I asked FH how he felt about my dad officiating and he said we should hire someone with experience doing this kind of thing. I recommend the same to you.

ETA: we have a tight budget so suggesting to spend more is saying something coming from him. Also, you want your loved ones to sit and enjoy and not have to worry about public speaking

Hi Natialia. I was wondering if you could talk about what you decided to do. Did your parents officiate the ceremony? How did it turn out?