Getting ordained can be quite easy or quite difficult depending on what religion you’re looking to get ordained in. However, since this is an intimate wedding website, we’re going to stick with the ordinations that can be quickly acquired over the internet. We’ll talk a little bit about how this system works and why it’s necessary before delving into the plethora of options you have to get ordained.

Why Get Ordained

Colorado State Law requires that a marriage can only be performed by certain individuals. You can read the exact law here – Colorado Revised Statutes 14-2-109: Solemnization and Registration of Marriages. For our purposes, we will focus on the phrase “in accordance with any mode of solemnization recognized by any religious denomination or Indian nation or tribe“. This means that to be able to marry someone you need comply with a religion’s solemnization practices. Largely this means two things. First, you need to be authorized by the religion as someone who can administer their solemnization practices. And secondly, you need to accurately perform those practices.

What is an Ordination

Ordination is the method by which a religion authorizes these individuals. Every religion has its own criteria for ordination. Some religions require years of training, degrees in theology and perhaps vows of chastity or silence while others simply require you to agree to their terms and fill out a form online. We will be focusing here more on the latter than the former as we presume most people coming to this site are looking to be able to marry their friends or family members without a lot of effort and red tape. 

How to Get Ordained

We could list the countless ways to do this, but frankly, Google does a much better job of it than we could ever do. If you type in “free online ordination” into a Google search, you’ll find no shortage of options. But remember this as they try to sell you all manner of add-ons, certificates and bumper stickers. The only important things (again, not legal advice) are they need to be a legally recognized religious entity and you are on their list of ordained clergy. 

Into the Weeds and Way TMI

Now we use ‘legally recognized’ here very, very loosely. Probably even improperly. In fact, our research has shown that there is no official list of approved religions and there is no universal legal criteria for a religion (again, not legal advice). The closest thing we could find to a formal affirmation of religious status is an IRS tax exemption for religious organizations called 501(c)(3). And yet even that may or may not qualify as a ‘religious denomination’ for solemnization purposes under Colorado State Law. So what on Earth does all of this mean? It means (we think) that the specific legal status of a religion in a specific situation would have to be determined in court and only when something is legally challenged. So only if the marriage was challenged in court would any of this be checked or come to light. Messy right? Well, we think so too. That’s why we recommend online ordinations through the Universal Life Church. Due to it’s size, longevity, inclusive nature and ease of ordination it is by far the most popular online ordination site and if it were to ever be challenged in court it is the one religious organization we have the most faith in to defend their status, and indirectly, your’s too.

How is it That Just About Anyone Can Get Ordained

Well, this is just our opinion and we could be quite wrong about this, but here goes. We think it is really about the letter the law and not the intent of it. It’s hard to imagine when marriage laws were crafted that the law makers of the time thought that anyone should be able to marry anyone else. The law makers took the time to call out the specific people whom they legally recognized to perform marriages, and clearly, they didn’t mention everyone.

And over the past, let’s vaguely say, 50 years, people have more aggressively challenged what constitutes a legal religion. And from the results, it would appear that the law is quite flexible. You can read more about this in the Legal Zoom article: What Constitutes a Church Under Federal Laws? We’re not judging whether this trend is good or bad, or what a religion really should be. But we need to acknowledge that it’s unlikely law makers of the day thought that the Temple of the Jedi Order or the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster would constitute legal religious entities in their own right and enable just about anyone to perform a ceremony. And yet as the result of this trend, there are many religious entities that offer simple and legal ordinations. In fact, the one we recommend the almost entirely specializes in online ordinations for weddings: ULC.org.