When my friends Jim and Katja Vella asked me a few months ago to officiate their wedding, the answer was easy. I’d known Jim for years, and having seen him with Katja on and off for the last year, it was clear he was happier and more at ease than I’d ever seen him.
It wasn’t my first hitchin’ post rodeo: I’d married my friends Chad Wallace and Nick Foreit back in 2017. And, as the founder of the First Church of Count Chocula, Abridged and ordained minister in the Universal Life Church Ministries, I was well-acquainted with the holy rolling necessary to oversee such auspicious occasions.
It did, however, get me to thinking. I realized that while I could remember plenty of weddings I’d been to over the last few years, I couldn’t really think of the last time I went to one in a church with a Very Very Official Officiant from said house of worship. Best friends overseeing the deal? Sure. Backyard affairs with loads of flowers, live music and a family member doing the deed? Absolutely. Hell, I’d even seen my friends Joel and Jenai get married by Joel’s boss. But a minister who at best vaguely knew the happy couple solemnly reading from a holy book? Nope, drawing a blank.
“I’ve definitely seen the trend [to friends and family] since before Katrina,” says Michele Caswell-Adams, the owner of Unique Weddings & Events on Baronne Street. “I’m seeing it with more and more of couples,” she says, estimating that as much as 75% of the weddings her firm plans are opting for someone other than official officiants.
The lack of formality and increase in intimacy has meant “ceremonies are getting funnier and funnier,” Caswell-Adams says. It also lets couples be more creative in how they do their vows. At one wedding just before the pandemic began, the couple had decided to use their respective siblings as officiants. Now, this may not seem like an option for the faint of heart: Your siblings know you better than anyone, and they have an all-access pass to the black box of your most embarrassing moments.
But it’s that sort of intimate knowledge that can produce some of the most touching — and fun — ceremonies, Caswell-Adams says. The pre-pandemic wedding officiated by the couple’s siblings ended up being “one of the funniest weddings I’ve done,” she says.
There’s a variety of reasons why partners have increasingly turned to less traditional officiants. One obvious factor has been the abandonment of strict cultural notions about where a wedding can take place. With more and more weddings taking place outside of churches over the last 30 years, it’s made other changes in centuries old traditions more possible.
Another factor is money. Weddings have always been expensive affairs, and each succeeding generation has seen skyrocketing costs. For couples that are paying their own way, this can be a huge factor in what they do as part of their nuptials.
At between $400 and $450 a pop, officiants may not be the biggest ticket item in a wedding, but it’s still a big expense, especially when all you really are getting is a stranger suddenly involved in one of the most important moments of your life. And, Wallace says, even if the officiant stays for the party — which, let’s be real, is the entire point of getting married — they end up “just standing in the corner” instead of being a part of the celebration. His husband, Nick Foreit, agrees. “There’s always that bit of awkwardness, because the officiant only knows a small part of them.”
Which, ultimately, is the main reason couples are picking people they know to help them tie the knot. It creates a more personal and intimate ceremony, which can in turn better reflect the couple, their families and friends, and the union they’re about to create of all those disparate things.
At the first wedding Wallace went to without a traditional officiant, “he was this hippie-dippy dude. And when he started, he said ‘Guys, this is awesome!’ And I thought, ‘Yes! This is what I want!’”
“If you’re married in church, the script is written … I trusted you to know your audience and read the room,” Wallace says.
Likewise, it was a no-brainer for Jim and Katja Vella to ask me to oversee their vows when they decided to get married.
“It can be a more intimate endeavor. You pick someone who can better cater to your desires [because they know you],” Jim says, adding “I liked the freedom and versatility of it all.”
And he was right, the ceremony — which ended up being a brief affair amongst a handful of friends because of Covid — was a direct reflection of Jim and Katja. Talented artists with goofy streaks, the couple wore matching monkey suits and leashes to be married at the backyard bar of BJ’s. The witnesses were some of the couple’s closest friends. It was a perfect reflection of who they are. And if a priest had suddenly showed up to conduct the ceremony, it simply wouldn’t have made sense.
“You’re part of the family,” Jim says. “And if we could have a family member marry us, why wouldn’t we?”
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March 15, 2021 at 07:15PM
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Romantic Comedy: Non-traditional officiants add humor and fun to modern New Orleans weddings - NOLA.com
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