Friend Officiant

Barnett Wedding, For Brides

One of the best decisions for my wedding day was definitively to ask my good friend to be our officiant for our wedding ceremony. He made our ceremony even more personal and intimate. Since we got married in Ontario, we still needed to hire a company to file the paperwork and make sure the ceremony was legal, but I was able to write our ceremony text and have my friend read it.

For us, it was the perfect option, it allowed us to have a bilingual ceremony, have a meaningful text read by our really good friend, who also loves public speaking. The ceremony was definitively very high on my list and it was simply perfect! One of the best part of the day, as it should!

My husband and I come from different backgrounds and we knew that a religious ceremony was not what we were looking for. We wanted a civil ceremony, but we still wanted the flexibility and personality that a court house wedding would not be able to provide. We wanted to get married by the water, with wind in our hair, in front of our closest family and friends, and we were lucky to do just that!

My two advices for anyone thinking about having a friend officiate would be to 1) look at the restrictions and legal requirements in your jurisdiction, and make sure your marriage is legal, and to 2) keep an open mind and think outside the box if it seems it is not possible in your jurisdiction, there are always way to make it work.