Let’s just say it: kids at weddings will be adorable—but they can also cause a bit of chaos. And when you’re the one up front, mic’d up, trying to land every line of the couple’s story and facilitate a magical moment, a rogue toddler yelling “BANANA!” at full volume can throw you right off your game. So what do you do? How do you keep things calm, cool, and collected when the littlest guests decide to make the ceremony momentarily about them? Here’s my best advice—straight from experience and...
Category: Ceremony Kickoff
The 5 Qualities Every Top Wedding Officiant Has (And You Can Too)
If you’re wondering how to be a truly great wedding officiant, you’re my kind of person. There are too many "okay" officiants. But true greatness is right within reach. So now that you're on this quest with me to be the best (high five!), let's get right down to it: what does it take? Whether you're about to officiate your first wedding for a friend or you're building a professional wedding officiant business, one thing is clear: being a top wedding officiant isn’t about being the funniest,...
How to Commemorate Lost or Absent Loved Ones During the Wedding Ceremony
Wedding ceremonies are just like life: we’re often celebrating great joy while at the very same time grieving a great loss. But ultimately we're faced with a choice: do we ignore the loss, or do we acknowledge it? This is the choice our wedding couples face as they plan their wedding ceremony. They may be grieving a friend or family member who has passed away recently. Or feeling the absence of a parent or grandparents who passed some time ago. Or a pet who died. And it doesn't just need to...
The Wedding Officiant’s Formula for Every Unity Ritual
A unity ritual is a familiar element of any wedding ceremony. You might have heard of the more common ones like handfasting or sand mixing. The tricky part for wedding officiants is that there are dozens - maybe hundreds - of unity rituals. And your couple might ask you to include any number of them in their wedding ceremony. And that's where the challenge comes in. When you conduct your ceremony planning meeting with your couple, they'll tell you they want the more familiar core elements of a...
How To Transition From One Wedding Ceremony Element To The Next
Wedding officiants have one major concern when writing the ceremony: "What do I say?" And it's not just the speech or the vows or other ceremony elements. Officiants just like you are worried about how to flow from one part of the ceremony to the next. This comes from our tendency to think of the ceremony as a brick wall. The elements are the building blocks, and then... But don't those blocks need mortar between them? If there's nothing holding it all together, the whole thing falls apart,...
5 Questions to Ask Your Same-Sex Couple About Their Wedding Ceremony
Even if you’ve officiated five hundred wedding ceremonies, the very first time a same-sex couple asks you to officiate their wedding ceremony, it can feel like your first time all over again. I hear it from experienced officiants all the time: “What’s different about a same-sex couple’s wedding ceremony? What do I need to know? I’m so worried I’ll mess this up or inadvertently offend my couple. Help!” The good news is, no one will be more understanding than your same-sex couple. Chances are,...
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