Did you have a friend/relative officiate your ceremony?

[newbie124]

If so, any tips you might be able to provide or feedback on how it went?

Awhile back we decided to ask my cousin to officiate our ceremony since we''re not really religious and thought this would also be a nice way to personalize our wedding.

I think this would be the first time my cousin has officiated, and now that I''m starting to plan out the ceremony I''m getting a little nervous and wondering how it''s going to work out.

I haven''t discussed the ceremony details with him yet but am planning to do that soon. I was wondering if any former brides have some tips about how having a friend or relative officiate?

 

[Keepingthefaith21]

Newbie: I attended a wedding where the bride''s brother was the officiant. It was an incredible ceremony because the emotional connection between the officiant was obvious. It made the entire ceremony feel incredibly intimate and meaningful. It was the ultimate in personal touches.

We were so impressed with the results of their ceremony we have asked one of our friends to officiate ours. I plan to take examples of pre-written cremonies and merge them together to create something completely unique. We are trusting that the person we have chosen will be able to add in some of his trademark personality to the ceremony. So far I have met with our friend once (our wedding is still a ways away) and I more or less asked him what he wanted to say (he is married so he was drawing heavily from his ceremony - what he felt was lacking from his JP - and trying to make sure those details are present in our ceremony), I jotted down his ideas and I am elaborating on them with more emotionally charged words. So far this method has been working out well for us.

 

[noelwr]

just ask him if he can run you through what he''s going to say and how he''s going to do it.

we''re having the same (FI''s brother-in-law) and I trust it will be nice and tasteful, so I''m not worried about it. but just in case he gets stage fright and forgets what he wanted to say, I''m also going to type up what I would have liked to hear as a fall-back plan.

 

[misspinky]

We had a friend officiate our wedding and I thought it was great. We had an hour long meeting with him about a week beforehand to go over exactly how we wanted the ceremony to go (ie--what we wanted to include and what we didnt).

If you have an idea of what you want (readings, scripture, traditional vows vs. writing your own, unity candle or not, songs, etc) I would just sit down with them and map out the ceremony so there are no surprises the day of. Our biggest thing was we wanted the ceremony to be short and sweet and our friend was happy to oblige. I think one of my friends clocked it at a total of 14 minutes from start to finish

 

[musey]

My Maid of Honor was my cousin, and her husband officiated our ceremony (AND their two daughters were our flower girls). He is a PR guy and does a lot of public speaking, and he's quite warm and loving... so he was a natural choice, once it occurred to us! That was one of the few "perfect decision" moments of our wedding planning experience.

Anyway, he was ordained through the Universal Life Church. We paid for his ordination and the little extra for a ceremony planning kit that they offer. It's basically a jam-packed script from which you can pick and choose... sort of a mix-and-match to get your ceremony script deal.

So he took the initiative with it and sent us a starter script about 6 months out, which we proceeded to tweak, add and edit up until about a month before the wedding. We had some stuff we'd researched and discovered that we wanted to add, so we had to improvise wording on that... and he suggested things he'd seen before that he liked for us (specifically a wine ceremony), etc. etc. It was every bit a collaborative effort.

It worked out great, I'd encourage everyone to have a friend do it! After meeting with "professional" officiants, I can't even imagine having had any of them marry us! Yuck!

The only hiccup we had is that my husband and I are not religious at all, and didn't want any mention or allusion to religion in our ceremony. This was a bit difficult to communicate as our officiant is Unitarian (and a little more religious than most Unitarians seem to be). I told him that I didn't care what he wore, but a suit seemed like a good option, but he chose to wear all black with one of those white-tab collar things for priests. That was a little weird to me, but whatevs.


Hope that helps!

 

[PilsnPinkysMom]

Newbie!!! I hope, hope you don''t have second thoughts. If you''ve got some "nerves" about your cousin officiating, ask to run through it a few times, or ask him/her what he/she hopes to do for the ceremony.

FI''s uncle is our officiant. He is a public speaker by occupation, and became "ordained" a year or two ago to make extra money on the side through weddings

I went to one of his weddings this fall (it happened to be his cousin''s wedding) and it was a truly awesome thing. He introduced himself as being related to the husband-to-be, and was able to interject personal stories about the couple. Their ceremony was very casual, the guests had an opportunity to speak candidly about the couple before they exchanged rings, and it was free of organized religion.

There are tons of resources out there (books, mostly) with ceremony ideas. USE THESE! Piece together parts of various ceremonies and traditions that you like to come up with something that''s uniquely you. You could even tie in readings/quotes from books and poems other than the bible, if you wish for guests/the bridal party to be more involved with the ceremony itself.

 

[Gypsy]

Hi Newb!

Yes, John's uncle presided. We bought this book, wrote much of our ceremony, wrote our vows, sent it all to him (especially the book), asked him to personalize as much as he felt was appropriate (with a few guidelines like... "we aren't really religious and would prefer to leave God out of the ceremony except in this one place HERE.")

http://www.amazon.com/Wedding-Ceremony-Planner-Essential-Important/dp/1402203438 Thank you again to Violet02 for the great book recommendation!

ETA; We went through the county, instead of the ULC. We had a wonderful ceremony, PRICELESS in how amazingly personal and memorable it was, and everyone told us it was one of the nicest ceremony's they'd ever attend.

 

[newbie124]

Thanks for all the input and encouragement! It sounds like no one regretted their decision to ask someone they personally know, so I''m definitely feeling a little better about it.

Control freak that I am, I''m planning to put together most of the ceremony myself, like others, by piecing together things I find and then maybe seeing if my cousin has anything personal he wants to add. Of all my relatives, he and I are the closest in age (only a year apart) and we grew up together until he moved to California some years ago. We''re not as close now, but it did seem to make sense when I first asked him after we got engaged, so I hope it''ll all work out like everyone else has said

Hey Gypsy, I''ve been using the same book! I borrowed it from the library something like 4 months ago and have managed to just keep renewing it and probably plan to right up until the wedding if the library police don''t come after me (heh

I also have the knot''s ceremony book, although I don''t think it''s quite as good.

 

[ilovethiswebsite]

my best friend is actually marrying my other best friend this summer. she has an officiant but she is from another province, so the certificate will actually have to be signed and filed by my friend (who is a notary).

i think it''s super cute and a great idea!

 

[Elmorton]

Yes, we did - and I'm so glad we did.

Backstory: We found an awesome judge who is a friend of my DH's mom's BFF. Then the judge found out that her yearly girls' vacay was planned during our wedding, so we were judgeless. DH's dad, an attorney, seemed ticked that we hadn't asked him about judges, so we decided to ask him next. The judge he suggested was not only the judge who presided over DH's parents' divorce, but also infamous in the county for allowing a murderer to walk free (I later saw the story on Lifetime). Nice, eh? So when I found that out, I was TICKED. DH joked that one of his college roommates was ordained over the internet (did it through the Universal Life Church as part of a humor column for the college newspaper) and if we couldn't find anyone...and then the more we thought about it, the better it seemed. I will say that my parents were not happy. I think they felt like we were making a mockery of something spiritual by having a friend officiate.

Also, it's important to really go over the laws in your state. We found out that technically, you can write in the name of your cat on the line - the only signatures needed to make the wedding legal in IL are the couple's and a witness. ETA: I assumed here that your cousin is not a pastor but reading over again, I think I may have made a wrong assumption. Ignore this part if that's the case!

How it worked: We wrote our ceremony script verbatim. There was nothing that could be ad libbed. We e-mailed it to our officiant/ex roomie (who I should mention is a journalist/broadcaster turned English teacher) a couple months in advance, and then over the phone, we rehearsed it and talked to him about it (explaining who was a reader, how long things would take, etc). We figured he'd read it once or twice over on the plane and be fine... and I will admit, we were a little nervous because his flight got delayed and he missed our rehearsal. On the wedding day, DH noticed that his former roomie was hanging back and pacing under the shade of this big tree next to our location...turns out, he'd MEMORIZED the entire thing. He was amazing. He did have a script for follow (we put it in a binder with his parts highlighted, like a play).

I think the bottom line though is that it was good because our friend cared about us, was extremely professional, and took the time to practice. We were also I think pretty good about communicating what our expectations were and responsibilities (mostly because he was really good at asking these questions as well). Also, we took the brunt of the work on ourselves - I think having a complete wedding script was really key. We didn't ask a friend to do speak on the fly or write the ceremony himself. There are several really good books at Border's that help you with writing a ceremony - ours was nearly completely pieced together from a ceremony book and a prayer book from my church.

To be honest, I've been to several weddings where it seemed that the professional officiant wasn't as polished nor seemed personally invested in the couple. I'm not saying that's the norm, but I do think that asking someone close to you to officiate is a great choice.

 

[newbie124]

Date: 1/7/2009 7:07:18 PM
Author: musey
Anyway, he was ordained through the Universal Life Church. We paid for his ordination and the little extra for a ceremony planning kit that they offer. It''s basically a jam-packed script from which you can pick and choose... sort of a mix-and-match to get your ceremony script deal.

Musey, can you explain how the Universal Life Church ordination works? Is there a time limit on when he can perform the ceremony after he gets ordained?

Also, do you remember how much it cost? I just went to their website and it says they offer free online ordinations.

Once he fills out the form, do they mail him a certificate of some sort?

Thanks!

 

[musey]

Date: 1/10/2009 11:35:47 AM
Author: newbie124

Date: 1/7/2009 7:07:18 PM
Author: musey
Anyway, he was ordained through the Universal Life Church. We paid for his ordination and the little extra for a ceremony planning kit that they offer. It's basically a jam-packed script from which you can pick and choose... sort of a mix-and-match to get your ceremony script deal.

Musey, can you explain how the Universal Life Church ordination works? Is there a time limit on when he can perform the ceremony after he gets ordained?

Also, do you remember how much it cost? I just went to their website and it says they offer free online ordinations.

Once he fills out the form, do they mail him a certificate of some sort?

Thanks!

Newbie, since I wasn't the one getting ordained, I obviously don't know the answers to all your questions. The only thing I can tell you is that the turnaround was fast and that it cost him $120 (which we paid, of course).

Once we'd given him a jumping off point (a couple of places we'd heard offer ordinations), he took the logistics upon himself. As it should be, really, as he was the one seeking ordination. If I had had to take care of that on top of all the other wedding stuff I was doing at the time, I think my head would have exploded. He also lives on the other side of the country, so I wasn't seeing him or getting snippets of the experience... only things that he chose to email me about (which wasn't much, bless his heart for understanding wedding planning stress).


I would bet though that the ULC message boards (which I found linked right on the ULC home page) would be a much better place to ask those specific questions.