Asking a friend to be your officiant / celebrant

Sit down for lunch together and when they ask about wedding planning talk about it and ease your way to you not having an officiant yet. Mention how you would be honored by them performing it and that you think they’d be great at it. Bring up why you thought of them to officiate your wedding (personal stories etc). Answer any questions they may have, and If you can see theyre apprehensive, tell them they don’t have to decide right away. Good luck!

View Quoted Comment This is what I’d do too

Lol. We’re asking my FFIL and I wrote a poem and we’re gonna go out to dinner with him and officially ask and then give him the poem too.

We did that and at Christmas we handed out save the dates to family and asked my cousin if she would do it. Didn’t make a huge deal out of it or anything, just asked her.

We asked my FH grandpa with a beautiful card. He loved it.

I'm going to guess that this friend isn't a professional (minister, rabbi, priest, judge, or other ordained person who performs weddings as a career). If this person is a professional skip to the bottom.

First find out what is legal in the jurisdiction you are going to be married. The laws vary greatly, even within a particular state. Then decide if you are willing to risk have a non professional screw something up and have your ceremony not actually be legal. Also consider how much work you want to out into planning the ceremony. A non professional won't have a good starting point for planning so the work will fall on your shoulders.

If you continue to want to ask this person, then just ask. Call them up, or ask in person, "hey we were wondering if you would be willing to officiate our wedding".

I’ve been friends with my officiant for 15 years and he fancies himself my second dad (it’s mutual!). We went out to lunch and I just sort of came out and asked him. He had been asking questions about the wedding, and while I didn’t mention anything about not having an officiant yet, I sort of just led into it by saying that we’ve been friends for so long and our friendship has always held a special place for us, and then straight up asked him to officiate. He started crying, it was so sweet!

Make sure that the friend youre asking diesnt have stage fright issues though! And be considerate of what they will say - I’ve been to weddings where a friend officiated and the whole ceremony felt like an inside joke that no one was let in on, so it was awkward for the majority of guests. Asking friends is great, just be cognizant of the fact that all your guests are there to celebrate with you, so you may want to help your officiant craft their script so they can be inclusive.

My fiancee said to his best friend “me and lauren want you to officiate our wedding” and he was overjoyed.

I would say invite them to lunch or brunch and give them a random gift or card asking them. My FH ask my FFIL to be our officiant after proposing to me. He presented him with an envelope containg all the paperwork he needed to certify him as a officiant. It was super sweet and unexpected!

View Quoted Comment I looked up the laws for Lehigh County Pennsylvania and it looks super convoluted to have a non-professional friend do it.

Anyone else in the area do it before? Some reviews would be awesome!

FH called him to tell him we got engaged and said “so you know you’re marrying us, right?!”

We're having friend do ours. I'm terrible at subtly and wooing, so I just said, "We want and would love you to marry us."

Easy peasy!

We are having two friends marry us and my FH asked them when they were having band practice

Just come out and ask while letting them know it would mean a lot to you. That’s how my fiancée asked one of his closest friends to be our officiant