How AI Could Devalue the Work of Wedding Officiants

AI wedding speech generators are easy to use, but you might be training your replacement. Here’s what wedding officiants should consider when using generative AI. 

 

You’ve been told that AI is a simple tool that helps you write faster. You’ve been told that AI is like having your own personal assistant, a digital intern that can write tedious emails, revise your wedding scripts, or research unity ceremonies for you. That’s all true, but could using AI actually devalue your role as a wedding officiant?

 

Because if generative AI is doing some (or most) of your job for you, should a client really pay your full rate?

 

This question is sure to bring up strong emotions – after all there’s still the work of marketing yourself, meeting with clients, driving to the location, delivering the ceremony, and more. 

 

But we promise it’s the question that a lot of potential wedding clients are asking themselves right now: “Why should I pay a wedding officiant for something I can do myself using AI?”

 

Because, like you, your potential wedding clients are seeing ads for AI wedding speech generators and promises that AI can write personal wedding scripts in seconds. Like you, they’re weighing the pros and cons of having a computer do the work for them. 

 

Why hire someone to write a custom wedding ceremony script if AI does a “good-enough” job in a fraction of the time, for free? 

 

 

But wait – I can write better than ChatGPT! 

 

Now, you’re probably thinking that AI generated wedding scripts are generic and bland. You bring so much more to the equation! And you’d never use a generated script or speech without making a few tweaks of your own, right? Adding a few personal touches to the output? AI is just a tool, you’re thinking, it can’t write as well as I do! 

 

And you’re right. It can’t! At least, not yet. 

 

See, every time you ask ChatGPT a question about a unity ceremony or religious tradition; every time you feed AI a draft of your writing to edit; every time you give any AI platform details about a wedding client and ask it to outline a ceremony? You’re training that chatbot to be a better writer – while simultaneously ‘borrowing’ the unpaid work of other writers, officiants, and wedding professionals just like you. 

 

And yes – human-crafted wedding ceremonies are simply better. They contain personal details, inside jokes, tender moments, nuance and personality that machines just can’t replicate. The pacing and structure of your written script might be imperfect – by language model standards, anyway – but that imperfection is what makes your words so relatable, moving, and human. 

 

In our opinion, a great wedding officiant speech doesn’t sound like marketing copy. It doesn’t need to be overly polished. It sounds like one person speaking from the heart – sincerely and supportively – as you unite two people in marriage.

 

 

We get it, AI is everywhere

 

We get it. Wedding officiants (and most people who work for a living) are in a really tough spot. One that we don’t have a lot of experience navigating yet.

 

On the one hand, AI is everywhere; it’s genuinely helpful in some cases; and it’s becoming more commonplace everyday. It would be foolish to assume we can avoid it, even if we wanted to.

 

And in a competitive industry like ours, where booking more wedding clients means making ends meet and putting food on the table, the pressure to work faster is stronger than ever. 

 

But it’s worth considering:

 

Is working faster with AI worth a sacrifice in quality, personal connection, and creativity? 

 

Will using AI more often devalue the role of wedding officiants in the long term – with couples increasingly turning to AI and a friend officiant in order to save money – leading to fewer opportunities for professional officiants? 

 

And who benefits the most in the long term when wedding officiants turn to AI to help with their daily work? Is it wedding officiants, or the companies that sell AI? 

 

We don’t have answers to all of these questions – but it’s certainly something to think about. As well as that unquantifiable joy of putting pen to paper (or fingers to keys) to write a personal custom ceremony from the heart.

 

 

A Brave New Wedding World

 

Since we can’t put the generative-AI back in the bottle, maybe the best path forward is to work alongside AI thoughtfully, carefully, and cautiously, keeping our focus on our human community whenever and wherever we can.

 

What could that look like? Let’s take a look! 

 

• Instead of subscribing to an AI service or supporting a company that sells AI products in order to improve your writing, consider attending a human-led writing workshop. Writing workshops connect you with a diverse community of like-minded people, foster your innate creativity, and help support educators, while you hone your skills.

 

• Instead of using AI to research a unity ceremony, wedding tradition, or religious tradition, consider the many human-centered resources available to you: Spend time at your local library, call a reference librarian on the phone, or reach out to a volunteer at a local house of worship for information.

 

• You might also enjoy an online officiant training class, a celebrant training course, or a networking seminar for officiants in your community. For example, you might attend Officiant Accelerator: A live training and networking seminar for officiants created by American Marriage Ministries and IAPWO.

 

• Instead of using AI to edit a wedding ceremony draft, start a weekly or monthly group with other wedding officiants and give each other supportive feedback. This type of frequent, peer-guided support fosters creativity, community, and lasting confidence! You may also benefit from finding an experienced officiant to act as a mentor, or by hiring an officiant coach. 

Remember, you don’t have to be perfect to be present. Your unique voice deserves to be heard. And you bring something special – something irreplicable – to the couples you marry, and the ceremonies you create. 

 

Your work is valuable – don’t let anyone, or any AI, devalue it. 

 

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