Always the bridesmaid, now the officiant…
I now pronounce myself awesome.
Because I can’t seem to stay away from being involved in weddings in any way possible, this past weekend I officiated my first ceremony!!! Two of my bestest good friends tied the knot, and they honored me by asking me to perform the marriage.
I was nervous, but in a good way. I’ve obviously given a couple maid of honor speeches in my day, but this was obviously different. This one required research! I read the brochure that the Universal Life Church Ministry sent me (after the extensive ordainment process), I googled a bunch. I even consulted with some friends who had presided over weddings in the past. I started to get the sense, though, that I had gotten pretty lucky with this one and that all my hours of preparation were for naught. Hours plural may even be a bit of an exaggeration.
The couple, let’s call them Dave and Kristen (because those are their names) implored I keep it short. Everything I read told me to meet with the couple and get to know them. Since I knew Kristen before Dave did, and have pretty much been their third wheel since early in the relationship, that step was highly unnecessary. They basically wanted to say I do, trade rings, and then let the party begin.
Personally I was very thankful for this. While I kept it together fairly well for my MOH speeches, I knew that having the officiant of the wedding be a blubbering mess probably wasn’t the move. I could’ve made the ceremony four times as long, going in to how inspiring their love is, how them together just makes sense, and how I aspire to find someone who makes me half as happy as they make each other. This; however, having nothing to do with me, I decided to keep it as… generic (for lack of a better term) as possible.
In my googling I looked up greetings (we are gathered here today, blah blah) and straight up copy/pasted my favorite one. Then on to the vows. They were writing their own. Boom, done. Another Google, copy/paste of a nice ring “blessing” and a couple options for them to choose from of a script for when they’re exchanging the rings, and a nice snippet on my hopes for their love and it was on to the pronouncin’.
The main thing I needed from them was how to introduce them. Was she taking his last name? (Yes). After we decided on the ring exchange and that, my job was pretty much done except for the big day.
Did I still take on bridesmaids duties like throwing them a Jack & Jill bowling party and helping the bride get ready because I just couldn’t help myself? You fucking know it.
The ceremony was a whopping 15 minutes from the time I took my spot at the ‘alter’ to the time I was back at the bar refreshing my cocktail while the couple took pictures.
It was honestly one of the greatest honors of my life. All joking aside, I would do it again in a heartbeat. It would be interesting to do it for a couple who I maybe knew less about. Getting to know them and accepting the challenge of really personalizing the ceremony would be kind of fun. But then again, I think this was the way to go. Short and sweet and on to the party… like every wedding ceremony should be.
To summarize: I fucking nailed it and for the low price of $50 and a nice bottle of tequila, I’ll officiate the shit out of anything for ya!
