Will you marry ... us? The friends stepping up as wedding officiants.
I no longer talk to the man I married when I was 29. But I'm still quite close to the man who married … both of us.
At the time, my fiancé and I were living in Brooklyn, just a couple of blocks from my dear childhood friend Erik Kaiko and his wife, Megan. The four of us shared a CSA and frequent after-work happy hours. Asking Erik to officiate my wedding was a no-brainer; he was an actor, an excellent public speaker and a true friend we knew we could count on. We weren't at all religious, and Erik had already gotten ordained over the internet in order to officiate another friend's wedding, so it all made sense.
Another bonus was that we were having a tiny wedding — immediate family only — and the officiant loophole meant we could 'invite' a couple of our best friends without opening the floodgates to actually inviting all our friends. The ceremony and wedding day were wonderful, and it is absolutely no fault of Erik's that we divorced a year and a half later.
Why go the friend route? A recent survey on religious activity in the U.S. shows that nearly half of 18-to-29-year-olds identify as 'religiously unaffiliated,' which suggests that they may be looking beyond ministers, rabbis and other spiritual leaders to help them tie the knot. And, as Erik himself points out, 'Our generation is accustomed to looking for ways to do things differently, in a more personal way — and getting married is a significant life milestone that is a good example of that.'
But what goes into asking a friend to fill this role, and what makes someone wedding officiant-worthy? Yahoo Life spoke to real couples and their officiants to find out.
'I decided to ask a friend to officiate my wedding because I wanted it to be a deeply personal service,' Lynn McKay in Syracuse, N.Y., shares. Her friend Acacia O'Connor was an obvious choice because 'they are smart, funny, thoughtful and eloquent," McKay says. "I knew that they would make the service special. They said yes immediately (of course).'
McKay wanted to differentiate her wedding ceremony from the more religious or run-of-the-mill ones she had attended or seen depicted. 'I had been to various weddings where I couldn't connect to what the officiant was saying,' she explains, 'and I felt like Acacia made it both personal and meaningful.'
O'Connor has been asked to officiate multiple friends' weddings. 'It wasn't for my love of the institution of marriage, that's for sure!' they laugh. O'Connor has never been married, is not monogamous and 'isn't the biggest fan of tradition,' they say. But they're a good friend, a writer, a good public speaker and seem to have a certain ... vibe. 'I'm priestly? If that makes sense?" O'Connor says. "I get the sense people think of me as someone who will have thoughtful things to say in creative ways, which is something you want in a wedding ceremony.'
O'Connor also felt it was an honor to be asked. 'I felt an incredible amount of trust in me, asking me to play that role,' they explain. 'I'd much rather officiate than be in any type of bridal party. (I'm nonbinary and before that I was gender non-conforming, so that definitely is partly why I'm not bridal party material.) Honestly, other than the affianced, the officiant is kind of the star!' And why limit it to weddings? "Bring on the divorce rituals and the funerals — I can do it all!' they joke.
When Brandi Ryans of New Jersey got married in 2010, it was important to have someone she could count on after a series of major letdowns. She and her now-husband had put down a deposit on a wedding venue only to discover soon after that it had closed and the owner had fled the country, with their hard-earned thousands of dollars. 'It's kind of funny now, looking back on how weird and dramatic and incredible our wedding was,' Ryans says.
After being scammed the first time around, reliability became a huge priority when the couple went about rebooking their wedding. 'We never really thought about anyone other than Julie,' Ryans says of the trusted friend who ended up serving as the officiant. 'She was always a part of the puzzle we could count on.' Julie had already married some other friends, and 'we just knew that she was a beautiful person and she knew us and we trusted her.' Thankfully, that second planned wedding went off without a hitch.
Kasey Freer and Jen Hillman, in Philadelphia, got married in 2012. They asked their friend Bev Canepari to officiate 'because she was a consistent part of each of our lives before Kasey and I fell in love,' Hillman tells Yahoo Life. Adds Freer: 'Bev was there when we met and has remained a great friend.'
Hillman points out that, as a same-sex couple, she and Freer 'weren't even allowed to get married for the first couple years of our relationship, so when marriage equality was finally passed, we needed our favorite people to be a part of it."
Canepari says she was "both overjoyed and extremely nervous' when Hillman and Freer asked her to marry them. After all, she had been the one to introduce them, and 'may have done a little matchmaking,' she admits. Getting certified to perform the ceremony was easy, but 'standing up in front of a crowd of their loved ones to marry them, well, that was a little harder," she adds. "But once I saw them both beaming with love for each other at a beautiful spot they had chosen in Prospect Park, my job was easy!'
Nearly 15 years later, Hillman and Freer are still together. (Says Canepari: 'The feeling that I was part of that? Priceless.') The feeling is mutual. '[I] can't think of anyone else we would have wanted to make it official," Hillman says. "It was truly a celebration, and the party continues today when we bring our kids to visit Bev and her family.'
And then there's my old friend Erik, now living in Chicago. Not only did he officiate my wedding and those of multiple other friends, but he has also played music at friends' weddings. And because what goes around comes around, he and his wife decided to have a friend officiate their own ceremony. Other friends (including me on banjo — a brave choice) were asked to perform.
"Having someone who would honor our wishes in terms of the overall tone of the ceremony, the length, everything like that" was important, he says. 'We wanted to control the atmosphere of the event, not have that dictated by someone or something else (like 'the church').' He adds that it would have felt inauthentic "to get married by a member of the clergy or in a church, in terms of how non-religious I am."
He's also been happy to return the favor. "I was someone they could trust to not only tick all the boxes legally, but also perform the ceremony in a way that felt appropriate for them," he says of officiating two weddings in a two-year span.
But what about all the hassle (and cost) associated with being part of a wedding? 'It is 100% an honor to be asked to officiate a friend's wedding!' Erik assures me (promising he is not just saying this because he officiated mine). 'It was not a headache to me because, in all honesty, I did not spend all that much time preparing,' he laughs.
Of course, even the best officiant can't cast a magic spell that will make the marriage actually stick. I divorced less than two years after my wedding, as did half the couples Erik and O'Connor married — spot-on with the national average, which shows about 50% of marriages end in divorce.
'I'm batting .500 as far as marital solvency,' admits O'Connor. 'But my friends in the couples are happy where they are at in their lives, and that's what matters.'
One silver lining, for those of us who did divorce, is the long-lasting friendships we've maintained with our officiants. Erik is still friends with all of the people he's married, minus my ex (solidarity). 'You and I can get together whenever,' he texts me, 'and we can pick up right where we left off.'
O'Connor says the same thing about their friendships with couples whose weddings they officiated many years ago. 'They're the type of friendships where if they called me on the phone, I would pick up, no hesitation, and I would show up for whatever they needed,' they say. 'Very Bill Withers 'Lean on Me' vibes.'
McKay agrees. 'The marriage did not last — certainly not because of the officiant choice — but the friendship did,' she says. 'Acacia has been and will continue to be a force of good in my life, and I am honored to be their friend, 'til death do us part.'🚨 Do you have a relationship problem that could use the help of Amy Robach and T.J. Holmes, our celebrity advice columnists? Fill out this form or email us — askamyandtj@yahoo.com — your question (the juicier the better).
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