My Officiant Fell Through! Help!

Here's some information from the Ontario website about performing marriages: https://www.ontario.ca/faq/who-can-perform-marriages

Basically, your best bet is to do what Emma suggests and go to town hall and get married before (or after) legally, and then have a friend/family member hold the ceremony on the day-of.

Is there a valid reason as to why your officiant is no longer available? As I have been hearing lots of vendors no longer being able to meet the required date. Which I ensured to ask if something like this were to happen would we be responsible to find a new officiant? Which my officiant assured me that it would be her responsibility to do so as it is a fault on her part not ours. I would check your agreement and see if it says something like that.

We are getting married the same day! You could try all season weddings. That’s who we got our officant through. It’s a service that will help you find one in your area. Just met with her on Sunday !

I'm getting married sept 15th as well!
Anyways, my church almost fell through because of my FH baptismal certificate could not be located. My back up plan was having his sister be ordained and marry me and her brother. When I asked her, she was more than happy to do so. So if you still cannot find one, it wouldn't hurt to ask any close relative or friend.

View quoted message You can’t do this in Ontario. It won’t be a legal marriage.

Interesting

You can get ordained online, would someone in your family or friends be willing to marry you? I think it's like $50?
We were going to do this for our wedding cause it's way cheaper than an officiant

View quoted message Awesome I have contacted them, hopefully they will reply!

View quoted message That is what we are planning to do!! Thank you so much everyone for all of your help. We really appreciate it especially because this is one of the most important things!

Like others have said try one from out of the area and pay a travel fee. Or have a quick civil ceremony with just you 2 at a city hall and then “fake it” on the actual day and have someone you know perform the ceremony?

I agree on AEIC weddings - they have tons of options usually.

Try contacting AEIC Weddings Inc. Their officiants travel and they may have someone that can make it to your area. I originally found them on Wedding Wire.

You may need to request an officiant outside of your direct area... I know in the city of Burnaby where we are getting married, there's only 5 options, but if they were all busy, I would reach out to neighbouring areas...

I know they technically aren't allowed to travel outside their region, but if you agree to pay travel expenses, and you have no other option, they may be able to do it.

I'm so sorry you're having officiant issues! From my understanding, in Ontario you cannot get ordained online to officiate a ceremony - it has to be a government clerk or legal officiant.

Try seeing if there is a list of marriage officiants on your provincial website - I know they have one for Manitoba. If not, I don't think that having a close family friend is a bad idea at all. Only suggestion with that is to make sure they are a mutual friend of yours and your FH's to avoid any drama from one group of friends wanting to know why they weren't asked.

You may want to consider getting someone from outside of your area (travel fees may be incurred).

If there was an officiant you reached out to that you found was really nice in their response (even if they weren't available) maybe ask if they have any suggestions? That's how we found ours - we started at about 5 months out and found it was really hard to find someone as well but we eventually did from another officiant who suggested them. Also I would ask them about having a friend ordained and they should know whether it's that simple. I could be wrong but I feel like I read somewhere it's a little more difficult to register in Ontario for some reason.

If that's the case I have a friend who what they are doing is actually getting married the day before by an officiant and then having a friend perform the ceremony the day of - this way they didn't need to go through the process of becoming ordained but were still *phew* married in the end. Maybe that's a solution?

View quoted message I would ask a close friend that maybe couldn’t be involved with the bridal party but would love to be apart somehow or a sibling not involved much!
Im sure it’ll all work out!

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Sadly no we do not, we are not very religious, and we are getting married at a golf course as well, so we are pretty easy going, we just want to make sure we have someone who will marry us on the day!

Do you or your FH belong to a church? If so you could inquire with the pastor there and see if they are able to help or not.
If that doesn’t work, I would 100% recommend asking a friend and obtaining online.