wedding officiant needed

April 30, 2007 10:48 AM

Need recomendations for a good, non-religious wedding officiant in Seattle, Wa.

The coordinator of the space we're using gave us the name of a guy she really liked, but his phone has been disconnected and e-mail to his *gasp* AOL account bounces back.

We're both non-religious, we're inviting large numbers of people of wide-ranging religious backgrounds (jewish to roman catholic) and we're not really interested in God-ding it up. We just want someone who will keep it short and sweet... along the lines of "do you? do you? kiss her, let's eat!" But, you know... classy-like.

Someone with religious affiliations is acceptable, as long as they can be trusted to keep it mostly secular.

The date is early september, if that matters.

posted by jeffamaphone to Religion & Philosophy (9 answers total)

Why not get a friend ordained at the universal life church? That is what we did several years ago. Just have someone fill out a form online and poof they're a minister. Check Washington's laws to confirm, but I believe this is valid in all states.
posted by dig_duggler at 10:58 AM on April 30, 2007 [1 favorite]

If you were getting married in Vancouver, BC, I'd have a great recommendation for you....

However, if no one here can come up with a good suggestion, check out Indiebride, which has loads of good information about all things wedding-y (and then some). Congratulations!
posted by rtha at 10:59 AM on April 30, 2007

if you're going to get a friend into ULC, remember they will need to get a Justice of the Peace license to actually perform the ceremony. But you don't need to be a member of any religious community to be a JP. So, why not ask a really good friend/mentor to do the service, and offer to pay the JP fee (very cheap and easy to get) and have them do the ceremony. You could contribute to the non-religious nature by writing your own vows.
posted by parmanparman at 11:26 AM on April 30, 2007

Response by poster: Well... I might do that, but I prefer now to get a professional who has some experience with planning pagentry and such.
posted by jeffamaphone at 1:02 PM on April 30, 2007

jeffamaphone, what you need is a Celebrant. My wife and I were in exactly this same situation when we were planning our wedding, and we found our officiant through the site I just linked. We ended up with exactly the non-standard, classy but non-religious ceremony that we wanted. Best of luck to you, and congratulations.
posted by Faint of Butt at 1:37 PM on April 30, 2007

You don't have an email address in your profile. Email me at my profile address and I'll send you the name of the one my best friend is using. The wedding is 3 weeks in the future so I haven't seen this person in action yet. Also, try the Unitarian Universalists.
posted by matildaben at 1:49 PM on April 30, 2007

Here's how me and the wife dealt with this:

1) we got married at city hall before the actual wedding ceremony
2) we hired an actor friend to "portray" an officiant
3) we wrote her a "script"
4) profit
posted by weirdoactor at 2:41 PM on April 30, 2007

I was able to get a justice of the peace to come out in his robe (he was a circuit court judge from 9-5, M-F.) and perform a marriage ceremony in a lovely arboretum. It was completely secular and worked with us to develop vows, and poetry readings we liked. Check with City Hall.

Best wishes!
posted by luminous phenomena at 4:09 PM on April 30, 2007

Response by poster: In case anyone cares, and for posterity, we went with this guy.

He was really good, willing to work within whatever ideologicaly boundarys we had, and many of our guests said he was the best officiant they've seen.
posted by jeffamaphone at 2:41 PM on October 30, 2007