Officiant - how do you pick?

Browse Instagram or Yelp and see who you click with

I'm not sure of the rules for your state/county, but we had asked my husband's uncle to get ordained online for free through the Universal Life Church so he could officiate our wedding. If your state allows it, you can ask someone close to you to go through the process. It wasn't difficult, from what he reported. Or, as Michelle explained, you can search online for a professional.

I wanted a good friend of mine to officiate my wedding (in addition to being a long term, dear friend of mine, he is a fantastic and captivating speaker) but where we live, in order to officiate a wedding, marriage celebrants must undergo a lengthy (and expensive) tertiary course in order to legally be allowed to officiate.

I reached out to a number of celebrants and narrowed down a pool of 2 based on cost, reviews, and of course availability. We met the celebrants separately and one was an instant stand out – her personality was so bright and colourful and she really understood my partner and I (and was also quite funny!). She also got my partner to really open up and talk, and as quite a quiet person himself, I was so surprised with how at ease he felt interacting with her. We instantly booked this celebrant because we clicked with her and got on like a house on fire

I highly recommend that you meet with your prospective officiants (at least a few) and just see how you feel about them. Consider; do they understand your vision for your perfect ceremony? Are they flexible with tailoring the ceremony to what you want? Do you feel comfortable talking to them about your relationship? Are they funny?

Ask your venue for recommendations. Ours had a list to choose from. I checked out all their websites & reviews.

Our Pastor will Wed us.

What about asking someone to take the course to be an officiant and they can marry you. I think the course is very quick. My cousins wife's aunt did it for them.

I don't really know our officiant personally, but while we were discussing who would marry us my future in-laws said that one of their old friends is ordained (used to work at a historic site that would occasionally host weddings) so they reached out to him and now we're set! I would just ask through all your trusted contacts and see if anyone knows someone that would be available. Good luck!!

We were considering having the friend who introduced us marry us (besides being the friend who introduced us she is my best friend in the entire world) but she's not all that great with public speaking so we decided against it, and she will be a bridesmaid.

Our DJ is a preferred vendor with our Venue and has amazing reviews in all that they offer including an Officiant so we went with a package deal on our DJ, Officiant and Photobooth services.

Make sure that your state allows you to have a friend ordained for a day. Many do not recognize it as legal, even though the ULC.

My cousin is officiating our wedding. Maybe you can ask an officiate from your church? Or have someone in family/friend to be ordained in your state. Check with your state about the regulations to be ordained.

I totally get what you mean. I so recommend doing a call before you pay a deposit. Have them tell your about themselves and their services, and see if you connect. I did this with 3 different officiants who had glowing reviews on WW. One I actually felt like she snubbing me and wasn’t at all interested in what we wanted or who we are, it was just a job. The officiant we wound up going with, when her and I were on the phone, I felt like we were lifetime friends just catching up! So I say start by reading reviews, then do some calls!

A pastor that I am close with (known me since I was younger) is marrying us, he is also the one that baptized me. I get what you mean though, having a stranger show up to the wedding and marrying you and your soon to be spouse doesn't set the atmosphere.

I'm not religious so I didn't have a pastor or anything to turn to, so I also had to get a stranger to officiate.

Here was my elimination process:

I found the top ten recommended officiants in my area.
I checked that they did non-religious ceremonies (as I am atheist and did not want to listen to a sermon at my wedding.)
Then, I scheduled a call with the top five.
The first thing I noted during the call: is this a voice I would want to listen to for 20 minutes? You might be surprised to find how quickly the choices will dwindle down from that.
I immediately axed an older gentleman who spoke about as fast as a snail crawls through molasses, a man with such a steep Southern drawl I felt like I needed a translator, and a woman who reminded me of Umbridge from Harry Potter. That left me with two, and then from there I asked if they had either written or video examples of their ceremonies.
One was the type who would meet us ahead of time and ask us questions about our relationship and all that to put in the ceremony (which sounded great at first) - but when I actually listened to him perform, he had that strange tempo that sounds like a high school kid reciting in speech class. Hard to describe, but just had that unnatural speech pattern that says "I am reading from a script because I do not actually know this couple, but I asked some questions to make this sound personal."
The other simply spoke from his heart - and you could tell. It sounded natural, and he sounded like someone who just really loved love, loved marriage and all it represented. This is who we ending up choosing. I loved the sound of his voice, I loved listening to him speak so passionately about marriage and love, and he was happy to customize parts of our ceremony (like removing anecdotes about children and adding a reading I liked) without getting too personal. (I didn't want a stranger pretending to know us in front of all of our loved ones who actually knew us.)

So I would say the first step is to ask yourself what exactly you want out of a wedding ceremony. Do you want something totally secular, something religious, or something in between? Are you wanting something really personalized, where they ask you questions about the two of you that they'll put in the ceremony? Or would you rather leave that sort of thing out? (There is no wrong answer here, just personal preference.) From there, start scheduling calls. Listen, and make sure that this is a voice you want to listen to on your wedding day. Ask for examples. You will probably find there is a personality you vibe with.

If you find options online— spend time and talk to them! We had phone calls with 4 officiants before choosing who we meshed best with. One felt a little too intense, one felt a little too casual, one felt a little too scattered, and then the other just felt right. We had a nice conversation and clicked personality wise. There were some uncertainties— we weren’t sure she was PERFECT for us but she was the best we’d found yet. So, we moved forward. Then there was lots of back and forth and sharing of our whole story , and by the time our wedding day rolled around, she didn’t feel like a stranger at all but like a friend who knew us and our relationship to its core!

We ended going with a stranger, and they were honestly really helpful and affordable.

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I think this is a great process, especially if you're not religious! My FH and I are having our pastor officiate our wedding, so it was an easy choice for us. That said, I can't empathize with this particular decision process but I can understand it being stressful when you don't have an obvious choice.

I had this same problem.. for months I couldn’t find “the one”.. the I called one up after having g 6+ conversations prior and he was perfect! Don’t be afraid to keep looking; you’ll know when you have found them.