What was most important to you when choosing your officiant?

We're still discussing it, but an important factor for us for an officiant is faith. We are religious, but since I've moved to the area I hadn't found a church of my own, and FH hasn't looked either, so we have no personal connections for pastors. My father is in the process of becoming ordained and so we have discussed this as an option. He offered it to us as a consideration and we're still discussing it. He has discussed it with his mentors in his church and found that, as of July, he would be able to perform the ceremony for us. We would have to have premarital counseling though, and he would not be able to do that for us, as him being my father would be considered a conflict. We're strongly considering it, as the ceremony is the whole reason for the day and we want it presided over by someone who shares our beliefs, and knows us well.

For us it was a personal connection. We felt like the person joining us in marriage is playing such an important role (maybe THE most important), and we wanted someone that was special to us. I have a dear friend who is ordained and he has performed a dozen or more weddings at this point. He was one of the first people I called when we got engaged because I could never see anyone else marrying us.

We haven’t begun looking yet but our absolutely must is no religious affiliation. Neither of us are religious and to have it involved in our wedding wouldn’t feel right.

We chose a friend that means a lot to us.

Finding an officiant was so hard! I am a devout Christian having a destination wedding so I wanted to find a pastor to do our wedding. I found some companies to be super cookie cutter, like you select from ceremony A, B, or C. We interviewed a few and finally settled on a retired pastor who was willing to do a Christian based ceremony for us. We also wanted to make sure the gospel will be presented & displayed during our ceremony.

I was awkward and was unsure how to decide upon an officiant. My brother does many weddings but decided i would reather him enjoy the wedding and felt wierd about him marrying us. We searched for an officiant just by a google search. Made an appointment with a female who stayed she was spiritual (which we are too..not RELIGIOUS). She was kind of taken back that we eanted to know how and what she would say, she stated most people just trusted her. But she went over it anyways, we told her would like to say a few things to our stepchildren and also our own version of our vows. She was fine with that as long as she could do the official " i do's" because that way it was more official through the law and spiritually binding as well. Overall she was great and we paid her and didnt bother shopping around. We also invented a code for yes i squeezed his hand once and for NO lets go i would squeeze twice! Good luck and dont over think this part! As long as they do and incorporate your vision, then id go with it.

We will be looking for an officiant who doesn’t have any religious connections, who has a great personality, and obviously preforms for same-sex marriages

I'm very lucky on this one! My grandfather, whom I'm especially close to is an ordained minister/ reverend and will be marrying us. Not even 2 minutes after FH proposed in front of his parents and my grandparents is when i told my grandfather he was going to have the great pleasure of performing our ceremony. I'm over the moon about it!

FH and I have a dear friend who we used to work with, who also happens to be an ordained minister and theology professor, that will be performing our ceremony. That was the first decision we made after getting engaged.