American Weddings Blog

You’re probably thinking, “Jeez AMM, isn’t officiating weddings stressful enough? Why are you dialing up the pressure even more?”

Don’t worry, folks! We aren’t trying to stress anyone out here. Quite the opposite, we’re eliminating stress by frontloading this one important fact -- wedding ceremonies are a big deal, and the only way to eliminate stress is to be prepared. That in turn, requires a clear understanding of what’s at stake, and guess what… it’s a lot!

As we all have learned, probably from not being prepared enough ourselves, the first few times you do anything, it’s always a good idea to be over prepared. Now, let’s take that notion one step further and talk about something you only get one shot at… a wedding ceremony.

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An experienced and effective wedding officiant works as a team with all the other wedding professionals, and during the wedding ceremony itself the unspoken partnership between the officiant and the wedding photographer is crucial. The wedding officiant leads the celebration in the moment while the photographer captures those moments to be documented forever....(continued)

As Wedding Officiants, everything we do is for the couple. However, we are also part of a team of amazing professionals who are also there for the couple. Here are four ways to make sure the other wedding professionals will appreciate you as a real team player on the big day (or maybe even before the big day):

1. The Wedding Planner: Give Them The Script!

My scripts, like a playwright’s, have everyone’s lines and stage directions.

- Photo by Author

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“Clothes make the man” - Mark Twain

A ceremony is an “event of ritual significance, performed on a special occasion.” That means there are prescribed ways of doing things. Certain clothes to wear, words to say, and ways to act. Few ceremonies carry as much ritual significance as wedding ceremonies, where couples publicly declare a legally binding commitment to each other. 

But, that doesn’t mean you can’t let your personal style shine through. Heck, that’s probably why the couple asked you to officiate in the first place. Wedding officiants -- that’s you -- are rockstars! 

Let’s dive into what to wear as a wedding officiant, because there are a lot of variables - such as the feel of the event, weather, location, venue, and what the couple are wearing - that come into play!

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Several weeks ago, American Marriage Ministries embarked on an in-person ordination tour across the state of Tennessee, stopping in six cities to offer ordinations in response to the state’s discriminatory marriage law that targeted ministers that were ordained online.

Now that we’re back in Seattle and have had time to collect our thoughts and recover, we want to express our gratitude to the nearly 2,000 individuals who took time out of their busy schedules to line up and get ordained with us in Tennessee. 

Folks from every walk of life showed up at our events (some coming from across state borders). Countless Tennesseans volunteered their time and resources, places for us to stay, hot meals when we were too busy to leave our posts, space to host future ordination sites, and anything else we didn’t think of ourselves. ...(continued)