Wedding tips

What is a Wedding Officiant and why do I need one?

Today I want to talk about the role and tasks of a wedding officiant (or also called master of ceremonies). More and more couples choose to celebrate a beautiful civil ceremony outdoors in an estate or hacienda and many times they forget until the last moment to choose an officiant for their ceremony, so let’s clear up all those doubts!

What is a Wedding Officiant?

A wedding officiant is the person in charge of turning your ceremony into one of the most beautiful moments of the day. He or she is the person who will be in charge of creating a personalized ceremony, guiding the couple and guests through all the steps of the ceremony and is the person who will help you relive all the beautiful moments that have helped you get to the wedding day.

In many countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States officiants can legally marry a couple. Unfortunately in Spain only a councillor or a notary has that power but as they are people “of the law” they do not usually offer beautiful, romantic and personalized ceremonies. For that reason, most couples turn to a wedding officiant.

What are the Tasks of a Wedding Officiant?

Every wedding officiant has his or her own way of working and creating a ceremony. But without a doubt, one of the most important tasks is to create each couple’s dream ceremony. A personalized ceremony, created especially for them, adapted to their wedding style, personality and wishes for such an important day.

I speak from my own experience as a wedding officiant, when I tell you that the love story of each couple is the most important thing. In my case, the first step to create a personalized ceremony is to have a meeting with them, either in person or by video call. It is very important to listen to the couple’s wishes. What do they want, what style, do they want something romantic or maybe something more with a touch of humor? A traditional ceremony or do they dare to stand out by incorporating some symbolic rite? Do they want to dedicate personal vows to each other or maybe they are shy and prefer not to talk too much?

Of course the participation of friends and family is very important for an emotional and personalized ceremony. I always encourage the couple to invite some people special to them to read a poem or give a beautiful speech, wedding readings are a must! I love it when couples tell me that they have an artist in the family who can play an instrument or sing, it’s the perfect excuse to create an intermezzo during the ceremony and give that person the spotlight!

Advantages of Hiring an Experienced Professional Wedding Officiant

On many occasions I hear and read that any friend can officiate a wedding. So by that rule of thumb, any friend can take the wedding pictures, play the music during the party, record the wedding video,… The truth is that “I have a friend who knows…” makes me personally nervous. Friends are there to enjoy your party and they will never be able to give you a professional job as a person who is professionally dedicated to create ceremonies, record wedding videos, capture emotions and important moments.

So I thought it would be very interesting to tell you about the advantages of hiring a professional and experienced wedding officiant:

  1. First of all you make sure that the ceremony will look like the “real thing”. You know that an officiant will not be able to legally marry you but he can make all the guests believe that you are getting married legally at that moment. Trick: if you combine an officiant and a notary your wedding will be legal on the spot 😉.
  2. A wedding officiant will know how to help you create a romantic and personalized ceremony by balancing each moment to include. He will help you to choose the music for each moment, he will help you to structure all the chosen events: welcome, love story, speeches, readings, I do, vows, symbolic rite,… Above all, he will give you a lot of advice.
  3. Of course, you will be assured of a person with a gift for public speaking. He will not be embarrassed to speak, he will not start crying as a friend would do in emotional moments and very important he will feel at ease speaking and addressing you and your guests.
  4. Thanks to his experience he will know how to act spontaneously and will offer a quick solution to any unforeseen event that may arise.
  5. You will be able to work side by side with an experienced staff to prepare a completely personalized ceremony, just as you have dreamed it. There will be no surprises or unforeseen events. Everything will be under control.
  6. Without a ceremony there is no wedding… The ceremony is one of the most emotional and important moments of your big day and deserves to be treated with great care. To have the confidence and peace of mind that this special moment will flow as you have dreamed and you will be able to relax, is very important…
  7. Only a professional will know how to incorporate original moments such as rites for civil ceremonies in a beautiful and special way. Experience helps to create truly magical moments. Only a wedding officiant will know how to beautifully execute a rite without making it look silly added just to be original or different.

You will enjoy a completely personalized script, written for your wedding. No more a bunch of copy/paste of beautiful but not coherent texts…

I’m sure you are convinced that the ceremony is a fundamental part of your big day. Without ceremony there is no wedding… With this post I wanted to make you understand the importance of having a professional wedding officiant for such an important day. I don’t know if I have succeeded but if you are getting married in Seville, Huelva, Cadiz or nearby and you need an officiant I will be happy to help you. I can also help you to write a completely personalized script.

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