How to Officiate Your Best Friend's Wedding (step-by-step guide)

More and more people who were born after 1985 are getting married these days. Most of them aren't that religious and have limited budgets. Therefore, it doesn't make sense to spend $200 to "rent-a-minister" for a day in order to seal the deal. So what's a low-cost alternative to getting married without a priest, minister, or rabbi? Why not ask a close friend? Not only is it free, but you're getting married by someone who actually knows you and your spouse.

I was approached by my best friend Cole a few months before his wedding and asked to officiate the ceremony. After sleeping on it for 24 hours (highly recommended) I agreed, and immediately started writing the speech. I started doing research and found a few other people had documented their experiences (which helped me tremendously) so I decided to do the same. I've included links to both my wedding speech and best mans speech below.

Step-by-Step Guide
1) Interview both the bride and groom separately.

• Get both sides of the story (I've included a list of interview questions for download below). Make sure you don't interview them together, talk to them separately. Through this interview process, hopefully you can uncover some thoughts/feelings/stories which you can work into the speech. Ideally, you'd like to get a good story out of one of them which the other might not know about.
  

2) Follow a template.

• I used the template below and added my own personal story. [download speech template below]
  

3) Get lots of feedback from trusted sources.

• I wanted my speech to be a surprise for the bride and groom so I didn't go over any of it with them beforehand, however, I did ask the couple about their vows. I gave them a few different vow options and they choose which one they wanted. This was the only part of the speech which they knew about before-hand.

4) Practice, practice, practice.

• I read my speech 10x times to 6x different people before the big day. Every time I read it, I noticed improvements. Every person I gave the speech to gave me important pieces of feedback. I recommend practicing as much as possible.
  

5) Print out speech on card-stock and cut into notecards.

• I modified the template of an MS Word document and printed out the speech on a thick piece of card-stock paper (8.5"x11" cut in half).  [download card-stock MS Word Template below]

6) Mind the details:

• Make sure you ask about the key details:
• What is the microphone situation?
  
• Are you using a lavalier mic or do you have to hold it? Is there a mic stand?
  
• Is the ceremony being recorded? Can you feed the mic sound to the video camera?
• Will the bride and groom be mic'd up?
• Is there a lectern or a podium?
  
• Where are you going to put your notecards, on a stand or will you hold them?
  

7) Get Ordained

• Go to the "American Marriage Ministries" website: https://theamm.org.
  (#PROTIP: You don't need to pay the $35, that's for the optional 'marriage-kit' which you don't need.)
  



Wedding Video preview (3min)

MORE: I also gave a best man speech, check out the "How to Write and Deliver a Best Man Speech" here.
Brian Moseley's Best Man Speech for Cole Mandl [video]

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cole__ang_wedding_script.docx
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wedding_speech_template.docx
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wedding_speech_card-stock_template.docx
File Size:	64 kb
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questions_to_ask_bridegroom_before_writing_a_wedding_speech.docx
File Size:	58 kb
File Type:	docx

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