So You Were Asked To Officiate a Wedding: Five Questions to Get Started

First: Congratulations. It is an incredible honor to officiate. Getting started can be bewildering, so here’s our experienced take on how to take the first steps.

First, you’re going to want to have a conversation with each member of the couple. We strongly recommend trying to have these conversations separately to make sure that you don’t miss any details, but trust your instinct here!

In this first conversation, you only need to ask five questions:

1. “Do you want me to be the legal officiant?”
   
   Many couples are happy to get legally married at city hall or a town clerk’s office before the ceremony, but plenty want the ceremony to be the ceremony. Becoming a legally registered officiant can be varying levels of tricky, so it’s best to find out as early as possible if you need to get that done. The path towards becoming a legally recognized officiant depends on your state, and the state of the wedding, so start googling!
   

2. “How much input do you want to have in the ceremony?”
   
   Answers range all of the way from, “Surprise us when we’re at the altar,” to “I’m going to write it for you, all you need to do is read it.”
   It’s best to know how early and often you should be checking in with the couple, and making sure that they have the agency over the ceremony that they’re hoping for. Nothing worse than working hard on a ceremony you think is going to be amazing, only for the groom to read it the morning of the wedding and ask for you to change everything.
   

3. “Is there anything you absolutely do not want?”
   
   For some people this is any embarrassing stories. For some it’s any references to religion, or a certain religion. Whatever it is, you need to know what’s absolutely off limits. Maybe they want to make sure that their grandmother does not speak at the ceremony! Find out now.
   

4. “Is there anything that you definitely want to happen?”
   
   You probably guessed this one, but we like to ask it after the inverse, because it’s frankly less important. The couple has probably been to plenty of weddings themselves, and have fantasized about their own ceremony. Get their best ideas!
   

5. “How long should the ceremony run?”
   
   You need to know your real estate.

You should now have what you need to get started crafting the right ceremony for this couple.