Having a friend officiate the ceremony?

Reading1982

Long time browser on here but first time poster - some great advice and insight that is hugely appreciated.

We got engaged a few months back and are close to booking our wedding for June 2016. We are both Irish but live in the UK and as a result we wanted to get the venue and date sorted as soon as possible as we are only home every other month.

We are not at all religious and plan on getting married at the registrars office a couple of days before the wedding with just close family but will have a ceremony at the venue - it's a lakeside setting (Anna Carriga) so would be a shame not to do anything.

We were looking at a Humanist ceremony on the day and may still have one. However, we are keen to have as many family and friends involved in the day as possible and as a result have wondered if we could ask a friend to officiate a ceremony but weren't sure how possible this was?

Our thinking is that we will be married in advance so all of the legalities should be taken care of so there shouldn't be any issue with us asking a friend to officiate a short ceremony with music and vows - very informal and hopefully something we will never forget. My concern is whether we are overlooking anything or if there was anything we needed to be aware of should we decide to go ahead?

I wondered if anybody else had done or seen something similar and had any advice/pointers for us?

Thanks in advance :-)

Faith

I don't think there's any issues once you have the legal wedding out of the way. It would just be a ceremony with no legal aspect with your friends, so that's fine.

January

Once you've got the legal aspect out of the way you could have a monkey perform the ceremony at the venue if you wanted. Nothing to do, just ask the friend and organise the ceremony.

pwurple

No problem, I've been to two weddings where the friend did the ceremony. In both cases the couple had already gotten married somewhere else, and this was the irish leg of the party.

One thing I'd say is pick someone who is confident with public speaking and can sound a tiny bit official / has a strong voice. One of the ceremonies was great, the girl was well-spoken and confident. The other person was a little nervous, not sure of themselves. He giggled through some bits, no-one was sure when they were starting if they were serious or if it was a joke.

I'm not sure what you mean by informal, but in my experience the ceremony works better if it is reasonably formal... Meaning people are quiet and listening for a few minutes.

matrim

Reading1982 wrote: »

Long time browser on here but first time poster - some great advice and insight that is hugely appreciated.

We got engaged a few months back and are close to booking our wedding for June 2016. We are both Irish but live in the UK and as a result we wanted to get the venue and date sorted as soon as possible as we are only home every other month.

We are not at all religious and plan on getting married at the registrars office a couple of days before the wedding with just close family but will have a ceremony at the venue - it's a lakeside setting (Anna Carriga) so would be a shame not to do anything.

We were looking at a Humanist ceremony on the day and may still have one. However, we are keen to have as many family and friends involved in the day as possible and as a result have wondered if we could ask a friend to officiate a ceremony but weren't sure how possible this was?

Our thinking is that we will be married in advance so all of the legalities should be taken care of so there shouldn't be any issue with us asking a friend to officiate a short ceremony with music and vows - very informal and hopefully something we will never forget. My concern is whether we are overlooking anything or if there was anything we needed to be aware of should we decide to go ahead?

I wondered if anybody else had done or seen something similar and had any advice/pointers for us?

Thanks in advance :-)

Just to make sure you know the humanists can do the legal part on the day now but they would have to officiate the cermony

I was recently at a wedding where they had the legal part the day before and an unofficial cermony on the day that was performed by a friend. It was a reasonably formally setup (i.e. seating, readings etc) but was really nice and personal because the whole cermony was tailored to be about the couple and what they like.

Peregrinus

As you'll be dealing with the legal end of things elsewhere, you can organise your non-legal ceremony however you like. You can have it led by a friend, you can lead it yourselves (I have two friends who did this) or you can structure it so that it has no leader. Entirely up to you.