Family member as officiant

My aunt is our officiant. Our wedding is October 6th. Congratulations!

We had a family member as our officiant. I believe he went thru universal life church. It worked out great for us but I would just call your county clerk and make sure it’s legal in your state.

View Quoted Comment I was just looking on that website but wasn’t sure if it was legit lol thank you!!

View Quoted Comment Awesome! Thanks you too!!

My dad is our officiant, but he’s also an ordained minister and pastor of our church

My fiance's grandfather is going to do it! But his friend already went through the process so he's helping him and we're too far out to much of anything for it so we don't really know what he's doing for it

My husband’s step dad officiated our wedding. He was ordained online and it was really fast. They also sent him a packet with all the materials he would need to put together a ceremony for us.
A huge upside to having a family member do it is that he knows us so well and has seen our entire relationship so he had a lot of personal things to add and our guests were ranting and raving about how nice and personal our ceremony was!

View Quoted Comment It’s legit. My husband used it to marry one of our friends as well!

View Quoted Comment That sounds so nice!! I figured it’d be a special touch and way better than a stranger!

We are having my future brother in law marry us. He has to submit some paperwork to the county to marry us for the day. I would check with the county clerk.

View Quoted Comment

It depends on the state whether it's legit. Some states don't recognize marriages performed by someone ordained online. In some states, it's unclear whether such marriages are legal (and you may find out they are not only after your spouse dies, when it's too late to fix the problem). In some states, they are legal. You really have to check.

You may also want to look at whether the state has an "officiant for a day" program. (Massachusetts does, for example.) Or whether the state allows for a self-uniting marriage, in which the parties just have to get a marriage license, then sign and send back the forms themselves (and then can have whatever ceremony they like, with anyone as officiant). Colorado and Pennsylvania allow that. Or Florida allows notaries as officiants, and it's not that hard to become a notary. Any of these options avoids any issue of whether the marriage is legal.

View Quoted Comment Totally. That’s why I said in my first comment that she needs to call her county clerk because every state has different laws. Was just speaking to that specific website. We were lucky that California allows it but a lot of states it’s unclear and not something I would risk.

My FIL officiated and is ordained with Universal Life Church mentioned above. He has officiated other wedding in California without any issues in the past. However, for the Nevada county we married in, he had to go through additional registration and pay a fee. Echoing sentiments to double-check with the county you are marrying in!

I just got ordained for a friend's wedding, and that same friend got ordained for ours It was really simple. I did it through the Universal Life Church. You'll want to check your state laws to see what's required to make it state-legal. I'm in Ohio, and all I needed to do was get a certificate of ministry from the ULC (I think it was maybe $20 on their website) and I had to send it in along with a registration form and check for $10 to the Ohio Secretary of State. Each state does it differently though so you'll definitely want to check. If I remember correctly, I found that information on the ULC's website as well.

I agree with others: Call your county clerk. Not sure where you live but Pennsylvania has some counties that do not allow it. We had a friend become ordained and it went fine. My tiny piece of advice: Make it clear that he or she is working for you. Our wedding went off fine but......I think our friend took the whole thing a little loosely. I am sure your cousin will great! Best wishes!