Become Ordained

Ontario is different based on the fact they have courses you need to take to be ordained. Courthouse is one of the places you can get official Officiants or Humanist Officiant to marry you legally. They don't want anyone just applying for a one time wedding weather its family or a friend. There are restrictions.

There's no magic online application that can ordain you like what you see on TV, in Ontario.


The closest thing we have is becoming a member of Humanism Canada and become a humanist officiant. There is a criteria to join and the process to become an officiant is at least a year as a member before you can apply.

I would check the provincial website to see who can legally marry you.


In NB it's only ministers/religious officials or registered officiants which are typically lawyers.
You could get legally married before and have a friend perform a symbolic ceremony. A lot of guests wouldn't know they weren't seeing the real thing!

As far as I know this isn't a thing in Ontario. You can hire an officiant to just witness your ceremony though and have a friend actually perform the ceremony! The officiant just has to be there (we were just going to have her sit in the front row on the outside). That's what our plan was before covid changed things! Now we are having the actual officiant legally marry us this year in a small ceremony, and our friend will do the whole symbolic/vow renewal ceremony next year.

In Ontario, only a Justice of the Peace or someone ordained by a religion can legally officiate weddings. There are things available online but they don’t often end up being legally admissible in Ontario.