Day in the life of
Wedding Officiant – Alan Katz
I have the most fun job in the world. I marry people for a living. I am the top wedding officiant in Southern California. Every day I get to join couples together and be with them on their happiest moment. I travel all around from the ballroom to the backyard to the beach. I have a front row seat to the greatest show in town.
My Typical Day
My life as a wedding officiant is very exciting every single day. Every day when I wake up I never know what adventures I have ahead of me.
My day starts out by looking at emails of all the new couples who wanted to get married and woke up in the middle of the night and did a search for my company. After returning a few emails I head to the wedding chapel where I prepare to take care of the couples who are getting married in the chapel that day. I prepare their marriage license and wait for their smiling faces to come in. When they come in, I listen to their story on how they met and why they decided to get married at this particular time. I love the variety of their stories and look forward to each different couple coming in to hear theirs.
During the ceremony, I make sure that it’s fun and romantic. I know I’ve done my job if I can make them laugh and cry.
After about two or three in a wedding chapel, I move on to other locations such as the beach, resorts, hotels, wedding venues, and more. Those are the bigger and more complex ceremonies. These ceremonies are months in the making. I learn a lot about the couple and work with them to incorporate their love story into the wedding ceremony.
I get to work with all the other vendors and the photographer, DJ, and wedding planner so that we are all on the same page to make this couple’s dream come true.
We all go over cues for walking cues for music and cues for different parts of the ceremony where the photographer is going to need to make sure they get the shot.
And then it’s showtime. I go up and take my place up in the front and do a welcome and instruct guests to put away their cell phones. And I cue the music to play and the wedding party enters. Once everybody’s in the position I ask if they are ready to see their partner walk down the aisle. Then the overture strikes and the bridal march begins everybody rises and the center I’ll become the focus of everybody’s eyes as they rise.
All ceremonies are basically the same thing; Vows, I Dos, Rings, and The Kiss. And then into that, I leave their story and more. At the end, they gave each other a big kiss and walk down the aisle together.
Then it’s my time to exit and head to the next wedding but not until their family and friends come up to me and tell me how amazing the wedding was. I have to endure this but it’s part of the job. Lol!
Pros
I get to go to some really cool places and locations and meet some amazing people. I love it when I have concluded with my ceremonies that all of the guests come up to me and tell me how amazing my performance was.
Cons
I would say the hardest part of the job is navigating from one wedding to the next through traffic in Southern California. The other big challenge is the momzillas.
But honestly, for that 15 to 30 minutes that I’m up there, I am the star, along with the couple. I get to put on the greatest show on Earth.
Advice for aspiring Wedding Officiants
Being a Wedding Officiant is a great career path but only if you’re willing to give your whole heart and soul to it. The people who are successful create and never say die attitude around them. Marketing networking and interpersonal relationships are a make or break in this business.
It’s easy to get started you just simply go online and get ordained but as I tell people you can’t buy a pair of scissors and be a hairstylist. You can’t own an iPod and be a DJ. You have to learn your craft. Be the expert and help people along the way be better at what they are doing.
