Wedding Blog
My Maid of Honor’s mother (and really, my second mother) has volunteered to marry us, and I’m over the moon about it. Initially I was really stressed out about the whole “officiant situation.” I just couldn’t see myself paying some person I’d never met to marry us. It wasn’t about the money even, it was about the fact that this was such an intimate part of our lives, and to have it presided over by a virtual stranger was… well… strange.
Mr. Penguin and I were up at my MOH’s cabin with her family, sitting around the campfire, when I expressed my concern about this situation. My MOH’s mother, perhaps lubricated by the jug of wine we were consuming (that’s how we do it… jug-style) volunteered to officiate. The moment was pretty awkward for me… I didn’t want to seem over enthusiastic about the whole deal, just in case she wasn’t actually serious, but frankly, I was ecstatic. It was the solution to all my worries, and it only further helped that she is an excellent public speaker and an upstanding and well known member of my hometown community. But, most importantly, she is my second mother, and has been a big part of my life for well over 15 years.
I’ve begun to craft the layout of the ceremony and what will be said, and it’s actually REALLY exciting. If you have the opportunity to work intimately with your officiant to write “the script” of your wedding, I highly recommend it. On the suggestion of several weddingbee readers (THANK YOU!) I started out with the book “The Wedding Ceremony Planner” by Reverend Judith Johnson, PhD:
This is, by far, the number one best investment I’ve made in this whole wedding process.
Its’ easy to get wrapped up in the details of your reception, but once you actually sit down and plan your ceremony, you really begin to realize that, indeed, the ceremony is the most important part of your wedding day.
Rev. Johnson’s book guides you through the entire process, and there are plenty of examples for you to choose from to personalize your own ceremony, from start to finish.
She starts you off with a simple layout, or “rough draft” for your wedding. You can add and remove elements as you choose, and start “filling in the blanks” with her examples, or your own personal text. I thought I’d share my non-denominational ceremony layout, as an example:
1. Processional
2. Welcome/Gathering Words
3. Reading 1
4. Declaration of Support
5. Reading 2
6. Marriage Address
7. Wedding Vows
8. Ring Exchange
9. Final Words
10. Recessional
11. Thai Water Ceremony
If there is enough interest, I’d be happy to share the actual details of the text of our ceremony. Right now I’m in the midst of personalizing it with our officiant. Writing our own ceremony has been perhaps the most intimate and rewarding part of my whole planning process so far. Even though the draft is in its early stages, I choke up a little bit reading through it, every time.
Are you having a friend or loved one preside over your ceremony? And to all you married readers, looking back, do you wish you would have hired a professional?
*Myrtle is the nickname my MOH and her sister have given their mom. I don’t know what it means, only that it’s fun to say. 
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Share this post: Marry Me Myrtle*
Oh that’s so wonderful! Congratulations and getting that part of the process taken take of! We had to same delema. Neither of us had a “family pastor” or anything like that. So we went the internet ordination route and my FI’s good friend is going to do it. We crafted the ceremony together and like you said has been one of my favorite parts of this whole planning process. I almost cry every time I work on it. I’m so excited to have something so personal and intimate. Congrats again!
I think it is wonderful to have such a personal touch to the ceremony. My father is officiating our ceremony, which makes me happy AND nervous. I’ve banned crying at the wedding, and I am a little concerned that having my dad stand there with me the whole time will bring the tears. We’ll see what happens!
May I ask what a Thai Water Ceremony is?
kristin — you’ve banned crying?? you can’t — no matter how hard you try. the morning of my wedding everyone cried — all three of my bridesmaids! i was peachy until the last bit of my vows and then i bairly got through them. you don’t want to by a gushing mess, but mr. onion loved that i cried — he thought it was very sweet and loving.
penguin — we also put our ceremony together with the help of our minister. she wasn’t someone we knew before but she was just the right personality and so professional. we attended one of her services two months before the wedding and got to sit down and meet her and chat. i felt 100% comfortable knowing the ceremony would run like clockwork with her leading us along.
Our beloved campus minister who I have worked very closely with is flying from Texas to Tennessee to marry us, and I couldn’t be happier.
One of the first things we did after getting engaged was read through the liturgy from the Book of Common Prayer to remember what the day was going to be all about. We also spent an evening early on in the planning process picking out the biblical readings.
Although I didn’t write or craft the ceremony, the words mean almost as much to me as if I did. I couldn’t have said it any better. It also means a lot to me to know that the sermon will be very personalized since our priest will be doing it.
I felt like planning the ceremony was a little overwhelming before I started - it’s great to have the draft to begin with!! The hands down hardest part of planning our ceremony was figuring out how to honor the parents we had both lost recently - and what to say about them during the ceremony. If you guys are facing this challenge and would like me to share what we decided on, I’d love to!
My first choice pastor wasn’t available for our date - which actually worked out for the best. My husband doesn’t also know what he wants until the last minute (kinda frustrating) but he realized he really wanted a close family friend to officiate. His parents had been close friends with this couple all through his childhood. This pastor had also presided over his mother’s funeral the summer prior to our wedding. It really meant a lot to Todd having someone so close to his family (and his mom) part of our ceremony
As for crying! Let’s see - as I was reading my hubby possible vows from the internet I started crying - that’s when I knew those were the vows for us!
Prior to the ceremony I was in my bedroom at the B&B with my brother (who was walking me down the aisle) all ready to go - just waiting for our signal. He left the room to check on something and I almost completely lost it. Like would have had to redo my make-up lost it! When he came back I was sniffling and said though tears you are NOT ALLOWED to leave me alone again!! Other than some more sniffles walking down the aisle I managed to hold it together - still not sure how. My best friend commented that it was the most emotional wedding she had ever been to.
My uncle is a minister and travels the world speaking at Christian churches; we are very fortunate to have him officiate our ceremony. We’ve already had our initial meeting to discuss the plan for the ceremony and are in constant contact by e-mail (he lives across country) to finalize, etc. Both FI and I are so excited and honored to have him bless our marriage. It’s going to be absolutely amazing ~ let the tears flow!
My uncle is an Episcopal priest, so he’ll be marrying us in my childhood church. I’m ecstatic to have him officiate. He was really touched that we asked, and said he’ll have to work really hard not to cry!
Since we are getting married in a church, there are only so many changes we can make to the ceremony. But, we get to pick the music and the readings, and I love the idea of saying the same vows that so many before us have said, including my grandparents and parents.
we hired a stranger. we met with her one day in her living room and we sat there discussing our relationships, our feelings, what we wanted out of the wedding etc etc. 3 days later, she had sent me a script of the wedding - completely took the words out of my mouth and all this without me giving her a deposit! i worked on it with my FH and sent it back to her and we perfected it. i definetely found the whole process to be exciting and i loved personalizing our vows and the entire ceremony! at first we almost asked my cousin to officiate for us, but i wanted her to enjoy the wedding. the personalization and intimacy can definetely come from a stranger, if you dont know anyone personally to preside.
We used that book! And I’ve posted on here about it quite a few times. It was such a wonderful resource for us. I’m so glad you’ve found it helpful too.
We had my dad’s best friend officiate (his first wedding!) and it was a very personal experience. I’m so glad we went that route. My husband and I loved that we created a ceremony uniquely our own … even if we did use many passages from a book. Likely no one else pieced them together quite the way that we did! 
I am definitely interested - please post the ceremony details!
I would love to see the details too!
I love that book and think I’ll post something about our ceremony later on, too: have to sit together with our judge and hash things out, but really, that book has been an amazing investment and would highly recommend it!
This post is right out of my own past wedding planning. My guest rule was ‘no strangers’, so why would I want a stranger marrying us. I completely agree that it’s that it’s the most intimate part and yeah, I had no idea what to do about it.
I researched a husband and wife team a friend had used, but they wanted something like $400. I couldn’t believe it…it was more than my dress! I then scoured my step-family for ideas. There’s two or three pastors in their, but they all live so far away and really I didn’t know them that well either.
Then my wonderful bonus mom (aka: very cool former step-mom) said that she was working on her Minister, Spiritual Healer and Earth Steward certification. Perk..she could marry us! We were her first wedding ever and it was so cool to incorporate her that way. Plus, she has a lovely soothing voice made the whole ceremony beautiful. Never regretted it!
Oh, and as a bonus, there’s a family member/friend in all of your ceremony pictures.
our wedding is still over more than a year and a half away, and i brought up the idea to my fiance to have his best friend marry us…i was hoping we’d wait until a year before, but he asked him at our first get together after the engagement. i’m happy with the decision. being married by a stranger just irks me. i want someone who’s known us during the entirety of our relationship, someone who’s been there during our good and bad times. i can’t wait to start working on the ceremony!
In defense of my crying ban:
I agree, crying can be sweet and tender. It is an emotional day. But crying for me is NEVER sweet nor tender. It is a gushing mess with much blotchiness and running mascara. No one should ever see that.
So, while I do want my day to be emotional, the important part for us is that this is a celebration. We are not mourning leaving things behind, but instead celebrating that we are starting a whole new life together.
The crying ban thing reminds me….the only downside I can see to having a loved one or someone new (as in new to the gig) perform the ceremony is that sometimes the moment can become just as emotional for the officiant. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but sometimes it can distract from the emotion of the bride and groom.
We didn’t have that problem, but I thought I would mention what happened at another wedding.
Kristen - I’m an ugly crier too, so I feel you I dont know if theres really anything I can do about it except be prepared for a total makeup re-apply after the ceremony.
As for the Thai Water Ceremony - Miss Orchid actually had one too!
http://www.weddingbee.com/2007/10/24/a-little-color-for-a-gloomy-wednesday/
Reader PBJ summed up what it is in an earlier post:
“A Thai water ceremony is a special time when the guests of the bride and groom (who are their elders or older than them) will come and give their blessings upon them. The bride and groom will wear their Thai outfits and sit at special seats. There is a bowl of water next to them in which someone (in my case the wedding party) hand to the guests a small bowl of water and they will pour water to the hands of the bride & groom and give them their blessings.”
Wow, reading your post gave me some deja vu! I’m going through a similar process myself. My FI and I didn’t want a stranger marrying us and especially not for the price of $550 that he quoted us! One of my best friends offered to marry us and now we are just about to start the whole planning process. Any advice that you have (aside from the great one about the book!) would be utterly appreciated! Thanks!
Yes please share some more information. I would need som inspiration. My cousin who is a judge will marry me and my fiance, and I have to plan what she will say. And I really have no clue, I have a reading and that is it. I have only attended 2 weddings before so I don’t know really what people do
[...] My Myrtle and I got together over a bottle of Amador County wine last night to discuss our ceremony script. I’m excited to share with you the second draft… it’s long for a post, but it’s so special! Mr. Penguin and I will submit our vows to her privately, so those won’t be revealed until after the wedding. We’ve yet to decide on readings, but the main “idea” is all there, and most of the script is based on readings and passages from the book “The Wedding Ceremony Planner” by Reverend Judith Johnson, PhD. [...]
[...] My Myrtle and I got together over a bottle of Amador County wine last night to discuss our ceremony script. I’m excited to share with you the second draft… it’s long for a post, but it’s so special! Mr. Penguin and I will submit our vows to her privately, so those won’t be revealed until after the wedding. We’ve yet to decide on readings, but the main “idea” is all there, and most of the script is based on readings and passages from the book “The Wedding Ceremony Planner” by Reverend Judith Johnson, PhD. [...]
[...] I began to worry about having a perfect stranger presiding over such an intimate part of our lives. My MOH’s mother graciously volunteered to marry us, which relieved the “stranger stress,” but provided us with a new set of [...]
[...] ceremony was like a dream. It was so amazing to hear every word my Myrtle was saying, and knowing that she so painstakingly crafted our ceremony with words from her heart. [...]
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Mrs. Penguin, Northern California
Age and Occupation: 27, Weddingbee Editor in Chief
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 30, Doctor of Physical Therapy
Engagement Date: January 29, 2007
Wedding Date: June 7, 2008
Blogging Since: September 14, 2007
Venue: Winery in the Gold Country
About Me: I love the Spice Girls, dogs with underbites, bean burritos, making messes, high fives, avoiding showers, crossword puzzles, blogs, weddings, and blogs about weddings!
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