What made your officiant great?

We asked one of my fiance's friends to officiate. We picked him because he's a good friend, is excellent at talking in front of a group of people, and we wanted to find a way to include him in our wedding.

We asked one of my long term friends to marry us and she did a fabulous job. We were so excited to have someone who really knew us.

Same as Lisa, our officiant is one of FH’s best friends and is the “spokesman” of the group. He wrote us a ceremony and has been really great about adding and changing anything to make it perfect for us. He’s got equal parts sweet and romantic, with a few jokes sprinkled in to lighten the mood. Since we always planned an intimate ceremony with immediate family and close friends, it didn’t make sense to hire someone we don’t know (and in our state of CO we don’t need an officiant or witnesses at all). If we were hiring a professional, personality would be one of the biggest things I would look for- someone who gets who we are as a couple and can deliver a ceremony that speaks to that.

We were required to choose one of the pastors at our church and I’m not gonna lie the one we ended up with was my second choice ahaha but he was great in the sense that honestly my first choice is way too talkative whereas this one was more straight to the point and didn’t drag it on

I'm hoping to use a pastor I was close to from an old church, or my youth pastor from that same church/time frame of me going there.... I am going to a new church now, but not comfortable with their pastors as far as "friends" go..

After the priest said no, we went from a Church wedding to a civil wedding.

This allowed us to ask a dear, dear friend to be our officiant. He's been the officiant for more several of our friends, and is like an older brother/mentor to both of us. (He actually knew us individually before we met each other, and then was like, "oh, yes, you two belong together, that's good.")

The three of us crafted a ceremony unique to DH and myself, the 'sermon' was deeply personal and yet very funny, and he helped us blend DH's Catholicism with my more agnostic/pagan beliefs.

Ours had excellent reviews. He was really nice! He brought his wife along since we eloped just in case one of our photographers didn't make it and we needed a second witness. He was there early and was very personable and sincere. He asked ahead of time what our colors were and level of formality and dressed accordingly.

Our officiant emailed us each questions about our relationship and during our ceremony she revealed our answers. It was really sweet.