Finding our officiant was the most difficult thing we have had to do in our wedding planning thus far. Which is silly, really. It shouldn’t be that hard, right? Well, we had very specific criteria for our officiant, which made it next to impossible to find a match.
Let me start by explaining that I was raised Catholic. Growing up my family was very active in the Church; my parents sang during mass and taught catechism, and my brother and I were altar servers. Our church was like my second home. After my parents got divorced we stopped going as frequently. As I got older and moved away from home, my attendance at Sunday mass decreased. I never questioned my faith or beliefs and I still consider myself Catholic, but I rarely attend mass anymore.
So naturally with my upbringing, I always imagined myself getting married in the Church. It is pretty much the norm in my family. I think I’ve only attended two weddings in my life that haven’t taken place in a Catholic church. I’m sure most of my family were very surprised when they learned we would not be getting married in a church.
You see, Mr. Castle is an atheist. Before we were even engaged he told me he would not feel comfortable getting married in the Catholic Church. I totally get it and I would never force him do something he wasn’t comfortable with. To clarify: it’s not that he is uncomfortable being in a church. That kind of a setting just didn’t feel right to him for our wedding. And honestly it didn’t feel right to me either. It’s not as big a part of my life as it was when I was younger. It’s still there and it always will be, but when it comes to our wedding we wanted a ceremony we would both be happy with. Something we could personalize and make our own. Something that wouldn’t really be possible if we got married in the Church.
That being said, I still wanted some form of my religion in our ceremony. My parents really wanted it as well. And thus began the nearly impossible search.
Our ceremony compromise was to get married where we wanted but to have our wedding officiated by a Catholic priest. As those of you who are Catholic know, priests won’t marry you outside the Church. But a retired priest may depending on his feelings on the matter. The first priest we found was retired and living in Santa Barbara. He was really awesome and when we chatted on the phone he sounded like the perfect match, until he told us his price: $1,200…ummm next, please!
Then my grandma decided she was going to find us someone. She got me in contact with a retired priest who was a friend of a friend. When I spoke with him he told us he would only marry us if we got married in the Church first. So we would have to get married in the Church and then do a “recreation” ceremony at our venue. With that option we might as well have gotten married in the Church to begin with! This priest was really nice and an extremely funny guy but not what we were looking for…
I then started to panic, freak out, reconsider my feelings about not getting married in the Church. I considered just finding a justice of the peace or someone with no religious ties. I tried come up with a friend or family member we would want to marry us, but I couldn’t think of a single person. I became a messed up stress case, having nightmares, losing sleep, crying, and basically becoming a crazy person.
Then a simple wedding-officiant website saved the day. It was called So Cal Officiants. (They just changed their name to Great Officiants.) They are a database for officiants in Southern California. At this point I was thinking we just needed to find someone, religious or not. While searching this site I clicked on the “about our officiants” tab and saw a selection for Catholic priests! I immediately filled out an availability request.
The site hooked us up with a priest named Father Geoff. His first email to us was very informative with a lot of details including a sample wedding outline and all the information we could ever need to get our marriage license. He was also open to changing any format of the ceremony. He seemed like a very organized guy, which is always a good sign. Now the reason he can marry people outside the Church is because he was suspended from being an active priest. The reason he was suspended was for voicing his opposition to Prop 8 in California. From what I understand he was asked to encourage his parish to vote yes on Prop 8, banning same-sex marriage, and he didn’t feel right doing that and voiced his opinion on the subject during mass. If you’re interested you can read about his story here.
I was very inspired by his story. This is a man who gave up a lot to let his voice be heard. He knew it was against what the Catholic Church believes and he said it anyway. It felt really good to find not only a Catholic priest who could marry us but one who shared the same beliefs as Mr. Castle and me on marriage equality. I was happy and relieved to finally be able to say we found our officiant.
Did you have a hard time choosing an officiant? Has a wedding-related decision turned you into a crazy person?
This is wonderful! I’m happy you were able to find such an amazing man to officiate at your ceremony.
We had a very hard time finding an officiant, well sort of, I am Christian and my fiance is Jewish. Originally we wanted to try and have a Pastor and Rabbi (mostly to please my fmil), but there were no pastors or rabbis who would co-officiate in a wedding except for one duo- a Catholic Deacon and a Humanistic Rabbi. Well, despite the fact that this wasn’t our “true religion” we thought we would give it a shot… the rabbi gave us the runaround. We ended up finding a nondenominational officiant who love! He’s a wonderful older man who seems like a very grandfatherly figure (neither of us have a living grandfather) and you can clearly tell he has a passion for officiating weddings. He let us plan our own ceremony, incorporate the traditions from both of religions and also gave us some insite and guidance along the way. We really are happy with our decision to choose him.
His story is amazing! It’s awesome that he will be marrying you…and you can tie the Catholic aspect of if into your ceremony without having a church wedding.
I’m in the same boat… was raised catholic and come from a very religious family (my mom teaches ccd classes and my grandma was a catholic nun/school teacher). I haven’t been good at attending mass since moving from home. My fiance isn’t necessarily athiest but wasn’t raised in any religion and would not have felt comfortable getting married in a church. Nor would our local priest have married us anyways as we live together. I love your result – still being able to get married by a catholic priest – this was something I hadn’t heard of before. As of now we are using a jp but will still be adding catholic traditions with the readings, etc. I still want God to be a part of our marriage, church or not!
My favorite quote from Greys Anatomy: “first of all, you do not need the law or a priest or your mother to make your wedding real. And the church can be anywhere you want it to be – In a field, on a mountain, right here in this room, anywhere because where do you think god is? Come on, He’s in you. He’s in me. Just right here, in the middle of us. Your church just hasn’t caught up to God yet. Your mother, she hasn’t caught up to God yet. And, by the way, she may not ever catch up, but it’s OK. It’s okay. If you are willing to stand up in front of your friends, family, and God, and commit yourself to another human being to give yourself in that kind of partnership for better or worse in sickness and in health. Hunny, that is a marriage. That is real, and that’s all that matters.”
That’s awesome! And what a cool priest. Thank you for standing up for marriage equality.
Wow, what a wonderful story! We too had a similar discussion about Church vs. no-Church/ religious vs. non-religious. I’m glad you were all able to reach a compromise.
I truly admire your priest for standing up for what he believes in — especially when it is such a controversial subject within the Church. I read his story, he sounds like a truly amazing man!
Thanks for this story. My FI was raised Catholic, I’m agnostic. We recently went to visit his childhood priest and was denied. My FI says he’s ok with finding someone else but I can’t help but think that my religion, or lack of, has deprived him in some way.
@KristyF – Thanks for that quote.
My uncle is doing our wedding so that was an easy choice (he’s a deacon). We’re both athiest, but we’re in the church cause even if we found someone who would do it outside the church ( I didn’t even KNOW this was an option! I wish I read your post a year ago) my family will not be okay with it and will not come to the wedding still. My mom has had stricter views on religion than priests more than once haha. I’m toying with the idea of a pre-wedding with just ourselves, but I really want this big one with all my family to be the important, real one. That’s kind of the point of sacrificing to have them all there, right?
I had no idea there was a way around the Catholic-weddings-must-be-indoors conundrum! I’m not religious but my father’s side of the family is mostly Catholic so I’ve become used to wedding masses. 
Your officiant sounds amazing. Good find!
Wow–I am super involved in Church reform and can’t believe I never heard of Father Geoff. What a wonderful person to have do your ceremony!
We were in a similar position. I was baptized Catholic as a baby but I’m an atheist now. Fiance is baptist. Since I was adamant about not getting married in a church, but having some sort of religion and history was important to him, we decided to go with his pastor from his hometown. I’m told it can be pretty non-religious.
Your officiants sounds like an awesome balance. We were both raised catholic but became atheist in our own time a while ago, we decided on a non-religious ceremony (the first I’ll ever attend to), let’s just say it’s more than uncommon here.
We’re having trouble because we would LOVE a JP but in Maryland where we’re getting married they don’t seem to have any judges or jps who do weddings unless you a) know them personally or b) get married in the courthouse, so it looks like we’re going to be forced to have a non-denom minister do the ceremony, although they’ve assured us we can write out the entire thing ourselves and they promise to not say the word God once (I’m a (Jewish) atheist and would frankly be appalled if my ceremony was at all religious and he’s a “lazy” Catholic and his mother is Muslim so any one religion wouldn’t work for us anyway!). I know we technically won’t be married as a part of any religion but I’d still much prefer just a judge as our officiant, but it doesn’t seem to be much of an option in MD :-\
I’m in the same situation as you miss castle… I am Catholic and attended Catholic school all my life (even my undergrad school was Catholic!) but my fiance isn’t religious at all. He respects me and my beliefs and would have been happy to have our wedding in a church, but I decided against it. I don’t go to mass as frequently anymore, but worship on my own (I consider myself a very spiritual person). I really want to get married in a garden, and we are. I grew up wanting a church wedding, but reality hit after we started planning… churches are expensive and because we live in New England and our getting married in South Florida things seemed even more complicated. I love our venue and couldn’t be happier with the “secret garden” feel it has… but every once in a while I feel as though I am doing something wrong, that perhaps I should try harder to marry in the church. But this just feels so right for us. I now have to find an officiant… I will look into retired priests like you did because having a religious ceremony and biblical verses read is a must for me!
So happy you were able to find an officiant that fits with all your beliefs, it sounds like he will be perfect for officiating your wedding.
@KristyF: Love that quote!
I guess I should also clarify that even though we are having a priest officiate our wedding, it will not be recognized by the Catholic church. I’m not to concerned with that right now. I just don’t want people to think that that I was saying that the Catholic Church is fine with Priests marrying you anywhere. Even though Father Geoff is a priest he will sign our marriage certificate as an non denominational minister.
Such a cool story — so glad that you found someone who is right for you!
great story! I’m glad you found your officiant who share the same beliefs as you and your FI.
Mrs. Castle, I’m so glad you shared the link about this priest with us. I wish more people – specifically those in positions of leadership – were as courageous and open-minded/hearted. Your union will truly be blessed and I am so very happy for you and Mr. Castle.
Wow, what a great officiant it sounds like you’ve found. I’m sorry for him that his faith that he’s given his life to is so rigid as to turn him out over what I consider to be a completely ethical decision on his part (I’m anti-Prop 8 myself as you can tell). The Church’s loss is your gain!
Mrs. Castle, NYC/Southern California Age and Occupation: 26, Actress/Babysitter Fiance's Age and Occupation: 31, Actor/Writer/Graphic Designer Engagement Date: January 1, 2011 Wedding Date: April 2012 Venue: Padua Hills Theater About Me: I am a Southern California girl living in the Big Apple. I moved here to put my degree in Musical Theater to work! My survival job is caregiver to an adorable 2 1/2 year old. When I'm not working, auditioning or rehearsing, I am hanging out at home with my FI and our two beloved cats. I love to read, sing, dance, hang with friends, and spend quality time with Mr. Castle watching our favorite TV shows (LOST, Big Bang Theory, and Mythbusters...to name a few). Mr Castle and I met while performing in college, so it is only fitting that our wedding take place at an old theater. We are planning a vintage, theater-inspired wedding with some DIY projects and plenty of personal touches thrown in. I love living in the city but I am excited to marry my man in the state where we fell in love.
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