Weddingbee Blog

The Baconator and I are what you might call spiritual but not exactly religious. We both had fairly religious upbringings, but never found a church in Chicago for us to join. We kept meaning to, but it just didn’t happen, so when we decided to get married, we had to face the fact that a church wedding wasn’t really in the cards. We nixed looking at churches for the ceremony and committed to finding a venue where we could have both the wedding and the party.

Once that contract was signed, sealed and delivered, we started weighing the pros and cons of the right officiant. First up was a Justice of the Peace, but while they are easy to find, we were worried that the ceremony would be too straight forward and not full of enough character.

Next was the idea of inviting a childhood priest to come and officiate, but that would have only been sentimental for one of us, while the other half of the couple might as well have a stranger. Besides, since neither of us grew up in the Chicago area, he would have to travel eight hours to the wedding and we’d have to cover travel costs and hotel.

We then moved on to a DIY officiant where we get a friend or family member to do the ceremony for us with one of those online officiant certificates.

We loved this idea because it would mean so much to have someone that’s been a part of our lives be a part of our new chapter. As soon as we double checked that the online officiant was even a viable option in Chicago, we were on to narrowing down to just who would be the perfect fit.

We went through a somewhat extensive list of friends and family but kept coming back to the Baconator’s Uncle Myron. The two of them have a great relationship, he has the same fun and quirky outlook on weddings and he’s involved with his church, so if he begins the ceremony with a prayer or speaks about God it won’t be out of left field. The two of us talked about it for a couple weeks and just as we were about to ask him, the Baconator’s cousin beat us to the punch and asked the uncle to do his ceremony, too! His cousin was getting married before us and their uncle was really excited to be a part of the ceremony, so being able to do both our ceremonies is quickly making Uncle Myron the officiant a family wedding tradition!

The Baconator and his step dad (left) and Uncle Myron (right) about to do a rehearsal for his other cousin’s wedding

We sat down with him at the beginning of the summer to talk through the elements that we wanted to include and he was totally on board. It was nice being able to talk through it with someone that hasn’t been involved in the evolution of the wedding. He was able to give some great advice without tearing up the way our parents seem to do whenever we talk ceremony. We are both so totally excited to have him marrying us on the big day and can’t wait to hear all the personal anecdotes he shares in the ceremony.

How did you pick your officiant? Did you go with a family member, too?