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The Wondrous and Womanly World of Officiating Weddings
Reflections on the highs and lows of the unconventional job of celebrating and solemnizing love in a complex world.
During the summer of 2014, I began a new career as a non-denominational and secular wedding officiant in Savannah, Georgia. To be honest, officiating weddings was my Hail Mary pass during a challenging period in my life, an attempt to make extra money on the weekends doing something I guessed I might like while I figured out what was next. That risk unexpectedly birthed a growing company that includes three partner officiants and a wedding chapel, and most importantly, it was the beginning of one of the grandest adventures of my life.
Together, my officiants and I have married hundreds of couples (823 as of July 7th, to be exact!) since then, from all corners of the world and every walk of life. Every morning when I leave my house to go to work, my husband tells me to go and “marry all the people,” and every day, I try my best to do exactly that and kick ass while doing it.
What does it mean to marry all the people? It means giving everyone who wants a dignified route to marriage that opportunity, whether it is an intimate marriage license signing or a ceremony with 200 of their closest friends. Before I had private space, I married hundreds of couples in a local coffee shop while we all…
