officially officiating and dealing with the non-traditional: part 1

When we started discussing getting married, future hubs and I agreed on almost everything, from season to colors to venue. Then we started getting into the nitty gritty, and things didn't run quite so smoothly. You see, part of the appeal of the B&B weekend for me is that we can have our "rehearsal dinner", our ceremony, and our reception all in the same place.

But that word ceremony troubled future hubs.
FH: "What do you mean, ceremony"
Me: "Uh...actually getting married?"
FH: "I thought we could go to the courthouse for that"
Me: "Wait, what?"
FH: "I don't want to make our friends sit through a long thing, that's just painful"
Cue me slamming my head into a wall (not literally, but still).

OK, time to get to the bottom of this. After about five minutes I re-approached him.
Me: "OK,  so you don't want any ceremony, or just no long ceremony?"
FH: "I'd prefer no ceremony"
Me: "Umm.....why? We can make it short."
FH: "We're not religious people. Why would we need a religious ceremony?"

This:

www.bestweddingdecorations.com

Vs. This:

www.orchardhillbedandbreakfast.com

(actually our venue!)

OOOOHHHH. Well that explained everything. He'd only been to religious ceremonies (mostly Catholic). That type of ceremony is very much "not us". Not that we have anything against religious people and their ceremonies, that's just not what we choose to believe or practice. Neither one of us have been to church in at least a few years, and we don't have any pastor/minister/reverend that we're familiar with even on friendly terms.  Poor future hubs had no idea it is not unheard of to have a friend, or a justice of the peace come and do a civil ceremony for non-religious people. Future hubs simply had not been educated.

Fast forward a few days, and we returned to the same topic. We discussed having our friend's father (who is a judge) perform the ceremony, but decided that would be almost as impersonal as having a pastor we've never met. That left us with this option: Online ordination for a friend/family member of our choosing.

We thought about our friend Brian, who knew FH long before I came into the picture, and was one of the only people supportive of the "online meet up". He and his wife Kelly are our closest friends, and he would have plenty to tell in terms of stories for the ceremony. One problem: he has a paralyzing fear of public speaking.

Our next choice (which we probably should have thought of sooner), was my brother. Although he's younger than me, he's very protective. Though he's always liked my man, he is always cautious when it comes to me and boys. He was literally the only one opposed to me moving in with FH, but warmed up to the idea when I explained all the precautions I was taking to ensure I wouldn't get left out on my butt. Future hubs winning his vote (it only took two and a half years), was probably a larger milestone for me than anything else in our relationship up to that point. Oh, and brother o' mine? He was a public media major in college, which means he can speak, and speak well. We asked him, and he said "sure, just tell me what to do". Awesome!

We'll discuss the ceremony in greater length later, but people have been asking how we made the decision to have my brother officiate. There ya go.

Is anyone else having a loved one officiate instead of a pastor?