More Couples Are Asking Friends and Family to Officiate Weddings

[SecularMotion]

With wedding season still in full swing, one researcher is finding a growing nuptial trend: An increasing percentage of couples are opting to have a friend or family member get ordained in order to marry them, a recent study finds.

It's unclear how many U.S. weddings are led by such officiants, but the percentage is clearly rising, said study researcher Dusty Hoesly, a doctoral candidate of religious studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Most people who perform these weddings get an ordination from the Universal Life Church (ULC), which has ordained more than 20 million people since 1962, Hoesly said.

Today, more couples want their wedding to reflect their worldviews, Hoesly said. "They are less willing to defer to traditional religious authorities in a church wedding, or to civil officials who could perform a secular ceremony in a bureaucratic office building," he wrote in the study.

Couples who have a ULC minister perform their wedding have the freedom to design their ceremony and to choose whether to include religious elements. For instance, one couple asked the friend who officiated their ceremony to read from a book they both loved as children, Hoesly said.

http://www.livescience.com/56094-friends-family-officiate-weddings.html

[iandhr]

1. Some very good family friends of ours asked my dad to marry them two years ago.

He became a ULC minister.

I think a big part of the appeal is that many people want a civil marriage but they don't want a judge they never met to perform the ceremony.

[AldebTX]

2. California Allows Family Members To Officiate

We got married in California because California allows a person to attend a short class that allows the attendee to perform one marriage ceremony after they are sworn in by the court. It was very special having my husband's Dad marry us on a beach in front of family and friends.

[MineralMan]

3. My wife and I got married 25 years ago.

The officiant was a musician friend who officiated at weddings as a side job. He was ordained by the ULC online. I was impressed, so I got my own ULC ordination, and have officiated at about a dozen weddings for friends. I don't charge, though, but do insist on an invitation to the reception.

All I had to do, in California, was register at the count clerk's office. The gave me a brochure about registering marriages officially. That was it. I could do the same in Minnesota, but none of my friends are planning to marry. They're all either married or have no intention of doing so again.

Pretty much every state now lets ULC ordinees officiate now.