How To Get Ordained to Officiate a Maine Wedding

French's Point
Published February 14th, 2013

wedding officiant Couples often ask us how to have a friend or family member legally officiate their wedding at French’s Point. With all of the rapid online ordination now available, it’s become popular for a member of the wedding party to conduct the service rather than spend a few hundred dollars to hire a reverend. So how do you get ordained for a Maine wedding?

Maine’s rules about officiation are relatively simple – you have to be an “ordained minister of the gospel.” The state does accept online ordination but will require you to mail in a paper copy of your ordination certificate. Most sites email you a certificate that you can print out.

There are all kinds of websites set up to ordain friends and family who want to conduct a wedding service. The Wall Street Journal published an interesting article on these sites a few years back in which the writer got ordained at some pretty outlandish churches, including the Church of the Latter-Day Dude, whose doctrine is based on the movie The Big Lebowski. For a more, well, mainstream outfit, if there is such a thing in the world of instant ordination, Universal Life Church has established itself as the top go-to for one-off reverends, and the certificate is emailed to you in a couple of days. Other church ordinations geared toward wedding officiants include the Church of Spiritual Humanism and the American Fellowship Church. Who new becoming a spiritual leader could be so simple?