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We recently met with our officiant, Mac, to discuss wedding ceremony details. He’s a friend, and this will be his second wedding ceremony. He accompanied Mr. Taco to a bar outing before we were even together, and he was one of the first him-people I met. Dallas-bred Mac sounds a lot like the bully from Bottle Rocket, so, sometimes, his voice alone makes us laugh. (Jump to 0:55 on the YouTube clip.)
It seems fairly common these days for a good friend or family member to perform the ceremony; I did it myself for Bridesmaid A in 2008. When our time came, it made perfect sense to go the same route. We much preferred someone who knows us to do something this important. We’re also not God-fearing people (refer to previous references about living in Satan’s handbasket), so a Reverend Lovejoy-style minister was out of the question.
Still, more people than I thought are surprised by secular weddings.
For example, a very religious distant relative asked at which church we were having our ceremony. She rolled with it when we explained it was actually a city-owned building, but she noted that she hoped God blessed our union. And she didn’t even know a CPA named Mac was performing the ceremony, yikes.
Others thought the lack of a “minister” made it an informal wedding. Immediately thinking everyone would show up in blue jeans and t-shirts, I tried to nip that one in the bud right away. Given the questions, I wondered if the seeming lack of formality is what turns others away from this arrangement.
Mac asked a lot of good questions for background: why did we decide to get married, why we don’t just live together forever, and what does it mean to us. Generally, I noted that the marriage ceremony is a straight-up promise, be it legal, spiritual, or both, to be the best person I can be. Instead of just accepting each other blindly, we promise to challenge each other to be better people. It’s not just me now, after all: it’s us. Thinking about it in so many words was a good exercise in “what does it all mean?” since “we thought it would be fun to have a big party” is probably the wrong answer to his questions.
Which route did you go with your ceremony? Why?
Huh, no one asked us who would be performing our wedding. I actually asked the Judge that I clerked for to perform our ceremony. Of course, since we were married in Philly and he is a NJ judge, he couldn’t legally marry us the day of, with our Philadelphia marriage license, so we were legally married the night before by my sister who had been ordained in order to perform her friend’s ceremony two months after mine.
Worked out perfectly. No one asked who was performing it (except my mother, poor thing was hoping that one of us would get a priest I think). And no one showed up in casual dress… Is it mostly family asking? or friends and acquaintances too?
I experienced some of the same surprise from people when we told them my husband’s brother-in-law was performing our ceremony. We knew we wouldn’t be going the religious route, and we didn’t want to ask a judge or some other official who didn’t know us at all. My husband performed both of his sister’s weddings, so BIL owed us a bit of a favor, and he’s one of our favorite people and we knew he’d be great. So we asked, and he said yes! I had a lot of very conservative religious guests at my wedding, and when we were done I was told by almost all of them that ours was the best ceremony they’ve ever seen (I was especially touched by this because I wrote it start to finish). BIL was awesome. So, yes, there were a number of people who seemed concerned beforehand, but afterward they saw how amazing it was! And no more nay-sayers!
As a (mostly) secular wedding celebrant, most guests assume that I must be a friend of the bride and groom or a cousin or relative and not a wedding vendor. And even though I’ve been doing this wedding officiant thing for over two years, my fiance’s entire family still doesn’t understand what I do because they are Catholic and they don’t comprehend that people get married outside of churches in formal weddings. It’s really interesting, that for a lot of people, the lack of religion or a solemn figure standing at the end of the aisle means a lack of formality, when it’s just not the case.
I started off as a professional celebrant because my best friend asked me to do her wedding, when I had no prior inclination or experience to officiate weddings, so I have a special place in my heart for friend-officiants 
We have a friend of the family marrying us and we’ve definitely gotten some “um, is that even legal?” questions. It’s one of the things I’m most excited about our wedding though! She knows us, she loves us, and she won’t mention a “higher power” if we don’t want her to. Despite being in a Catholic family, most of our family weddings haven’t been in churches, so I’m hoping it’ll all be okay. Our most religious relatives don’t know about this aspect of the wedding and I’d rather keep it that way so that it’s not just another thing for them to say we should do differently.
I think it’s so cool to be able to have someone you know personally be your officiant! And I totally don’t think that way about non-religious ceremony! Mr. C and I are both actually pretty religious people, but we’re not getting married in a church! If we could think of someone that we wanted to officiate our ceremony that wasn’t a pastor, we’d totally do that too!
We are not religious and like others here, didn’t want a stranger marrying us. Would feel really impersonal. We’re having finances uncle get ordained and he will be doing it. He was so honored that we asked and it will be much more personal.
I would love to have someone personal perform our ceremony - unfortunately, I don’t think this is an option in Canada (specifically, Nova Scotia). We are having a secular ceremony, and are having a JOP perform the ceremony. We met her at Christmas, and she was great, so we are still happy.
On having a secular ceremony - I also get regularly asked what “church” we will be getting married in. My aunt was horrified we weren’t getting married in a church, but I think most people just assume that people get married in churches because it is so common.
We’ll be asking his mother’s boyfriend (of 10+ years) to perform our ceremony, but since we haven’t asked him yet we haven’t leaked it about to anyone else. But neither of us are religious… and honestly, religious figures creep me out, so I really don’t want any kind of minister figure to be marrying me! And we want the person marrying us to be someone we both know and like, not some stranger.
I think it is a lot more usual these days, but there are probably always some people who think a church/church figure is the only way.
Hm, no one has asked us this question. We’re having a professional officiant do it, and she’s a non-denominational minister but we told her to keep the religious references down because neither of us is religious. So while there will be vague references to God there won’t be much. I’m surprised so many people are asking you about it! Oh well, can’t please everyone!
I officiated at a friend’s wedding and I think it’s a great option. I got ordained by the Universal Life Church. I’m not religious whatsoever (agnostic) and that’s ok with them. I suspect I’m going to go the City Hall route but if I don’t, I’ll definitely be getting a friend to get ordained to marry us.
I’m all about the secular with Mr. P’s Uncle doing the ceremony. It went so well though- have fun planning yours!
Your ceremony sounds like something I could definitely be on board with! We’ll be getting married via a civil ceremony, and then our ceremony in front of our family and friends on our “wedding day” will be performed by our bridesmaids and groomsmen–each will read a piece of the ceremony we write!
Most of our religious family members are confused by this, but I’m hoping that in the end, they’ll see how personal it all was and they’ll like it!
We’re having a secular ceremony, which is not going over too well with Mr. K’s family…I’d say most people in Toronto aren’t the slightest bit surprised by a secular wedding, but every so often I’ve gotten the occasional comment which I found really surprising.
@Miss Socks: I LOVE this idea.
I wish it was that simple! Having an interfaith ceremony without the faith is currently the battle. My fiance is Jewish and he/his family wants that represented in the ceremony, I myself am Catholic but much more of a oh yeah we do easter and christmas catholic. We are trying to find nice people to marry us who will occasionally throw out references to god (although not specific to which one) but still GET us. I fully support your secular wedding and wish that I could appease my families with just having a friend marry us.
A CPA named Mac –hahaha. Way to reference one of my all time fave movies –my husband & I watched it on our very 1st date! I love “Future Man” (aka the bully) –he’s actually Luke & Owen Wilson’s other brother!
I am a fairly religious person (my husband being just the opposite) & grew up in an Irish Catholic household. Even though my parents are no longer living, getting married in our family’s church was the one non-negotiable. I think what you are doing is very special, but for me, it would not be my wedding w/o the church and our Pastor. I am a very traditional person and our wedding definitely reflected that, but I definitely respect & admire others’ decisions
@Christine: Christine, it’s actually mostly family; everyone else has been to a billion weddings with non-traditional officiants, it seems!
That’s interesting, I would never have thought that non-religious officiant = informal! We’re having my uncle perform our ceremony, and the grooms and groomsmen are wearing tuxes!
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Mrs. Taco, San Francisco Age and Occupation: 29, writer/editor Fiance's Age and Occupation: 37, editor Engagement Date: May 13, 2009 Wedding Date: August 2010 Venue: The Green Room at the War Memorial Veterans Building About Me: I like laughing and talking with good friends over good food and good drink, be it wine, cocktail, or brew. I write and edit things for fun and profit, but I rarely "write" these days without a keyboard and high-speed internets. Favorites include Mr. Taco, my Boston terrier, San Francisco, getting out of town, and the Roaring ’20s. I was kind-of planning a wedding since roughly 2006, when I discovered "Whose Wedding Is It Anyway?" on the WE channel. I ran and didn't look back with a theme I called "urban vintage," and it culminated in the most magical day a taco could ask for.
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