Wedding Wednesdays: Five Steps Towards Finding the Right Wedding Officiant

To create the right kind of wedding ceremony, you have to select the right officiant—or officiants— and will need to have a clear understanding about what to expect in your work together. This also makes day-of so much easier when you're focusing on a million other things. Get to really know your officiant! The more you feel comfortable at your wedding, the better.

1. Find someone you feel truly comfortable with. Seek someone who makes you feel so at ease on so many levels that you can relax on your wedding day, knowing you will be taken care of. You want the person who facilitates and guides this important milestone in your life to be someone you both feel confident about; someone who makes no judgments about your union and whose only concern is providing you a ceremonial experience that is all you want it to be. It would be wonderful to work with a wedding officiant who is caring and willing to get to know you.

2. Be clear about what is in the ceremony. The couple should have input into the language, readings, and rituals in the ceremony, and should have final approval of the wedding script. Not every officiant works that way but at the very least you should be assured that there will be no surprises or unwanted preaching.

3. Be clear on the officiant’s ground rules. If an officiant is representing a specific faith and is not able or willing to adapt a ceremony, you must respect that. Unless he or she specifically agrees, you cannot expect that person to represent anything other than their own faith. Be clear, from the very start, what the officiant can and can’t do. This includes whether the officiant can even take on an interfaith or same sex wedding, if this is the case.

4. Make sure your officiant can sign your license. Every state has different procedures for clergy. In New York City, for example, an officiant must be registered with the City Clerk’s Office—even a justice of the peace or a judge from another town—for at least 24 hours before they can sign the license. Don’t assume, always ask, if the officiant is fully prepared to make the ceremony legal in your state.

5. Put things in writing. Weddings are stressful. Couples are new at asking these questions and conversations may not be remembered in full. This is why it is extremely important to have a clear agreement with the officiant, so you know exactly what to expect.

Say the best 'I Do' to your significant other (and the right wedding officiant too) and devour the details of a calm, cool and collected wedding ceremony!