Your wedding day is meant to be one of the most memorable days of your life. It signifies the commitment you and your partner make to one another as you promise to share your lives. It's important to choose the person you're committing to carefully, but it's also helpful to be particular about the other people who are a part of your big day. Any professional minister you find online can get the job done, but there are many perks to choosing a friend to be your officiant.

Personalized Ceremony

All your ceremony needs to be legal is a declaration of intent from both parties and the pronouncement by the minister that you are married at the end. A hired officiant can easily find sample scripts online for different types of weddings. When you choose someone who knows you both well, however, the ceremony can be more personal. 

Friends understand the challenges you have overcome to get your relationship to the altar better than anyone else because they were likely right beside you in support the whole way. They can share stories about your relationship that you might not even remember to mention to another minister. Finally, a familiar officiant knows how meaningful the day is to you, and the shared excitement that it has finally arrived will show through in his or her presentation. 

Meaningful Pictures

When it comes time to pose for the camera, you want everyone involved to be in them. While you probably have a long list of shots you want your photographer to take, there are a few groupings that are essential:

• The happy couple
• The wedding party
• Each set of parents
• Extended family
• The couple with the minister

Having someone you know well as your minister makes the photo much more meaningful than if you hire a stranger. It not only makes the posed shots of the three of you together more special but also results in fantastic candids during the ceremony.

Special Considerations

If there are specific tasks you want your officiant to perform, you are more likely to be able to find the perfect person in your pool of friends than in a list of candidates on the internet. For example, if you or your partner speaks another language, you may decide to incorporate it into the ceremony. It would be helpful to have someone who speaks the language officiate, and you probably already have a few people in mind who would be up to the task. It's easier to guarantee that you get what you want when you know the officiant well.

Lower Cost

The less a minister knows about the couple he or she is marrying, the more prep work there is to perform the ceremony well. Therefore, good friends may not charge you as much to officiate your wedding. In fact, they may feel so honored to be asked that they offer to do it for free!

Even if your friend is not officially licensed to do so yet, he or she can get ordained online for free in plenty of time for your big day. Then all that's left to do is to meet with you a few times to discuss what to say, show up for the rehearsal and the wedding, and make sure the marriage license gets filed correctly and on time.

Your wedding day is going to be memorable regardless of the decisions you make. Asking someone who knows you and your partner well to be the officiant makes it that much more special. You will always remember being surrounded and celebrated by people who love you on your big day.