Can anyone minister a wedding on SL?

Hey

My fiancee and I would like to ask a very close friend to minister at our wedding. We want to know however if anyone can minister or if they have to have something to allow them to. Would someone please get back to me, inworld if possible, it would be very much appreciated.

Kisses
Suki Bigbear xx

SL partnering is not a legal proceeding. Neither is it a religious union. It is not a binding marriage like RL. So ... sure, anyone you want can play the part of the minister.

Anyone can do it, yes. There's no law or regulation involved, and no legal standing in the pairing. It's just roleplay.

I officialted a lovely wedding ceremony in SL once myself. The groom was a friend of many years, and he admired my ability with roleplay and with establishing detailed scenes, with all the expected in-world props and verbal detailing. It went very well. The happy couple and their guests all thought it was a beautiful ceremony, and just perfect for the two of them.

In RL, I am only marginally qualified to conduct a real-life wedding ceremony. Though for me, it would mostly just a matter of securing the necessary civil paperwork to document my authority to perform a religious wedding ceremony, and paying a few registration fees.

Me too. Althought the documentation I'd need to file and fees I'd need to pay would allow me to perform a civil ceremony, not a religious one. Other sources here: Sable Valentine and RockandRoll Michigan may have good input.

Yeah, I've officiated a number of weddings in SL (and some of the couples are even still together!!!!), and I have absolutely zilch qualifications in RL: no amount of paperwork would give the RL rights to do so.

My advice: choose someone you know, and who knows (preferably) both of you well. It should be someone who is articulate, imaginative, and just a little poetic.

Good advice.


And make sure they have a Loco Poco bear avatar!
(just kidding ... but they are sooooo cute ♥♥♥ )

I'm the SL Pope, if that tells you anything. (^_^)y

Too late, I've just married ya both.


Divorces are $L 10,000

[insert standard blurb about SL not being real-life, yada yada...]

This does raise some interesting questions for our resident legal beagles to sniff out. Do the laws governing civil unions in the real world require the participants to be physically present at the same location during the ceremony in order for the union to be legally binding?

Suspending how much this maxes out the creep-meter for just a moment, would it be legally possible to perform a real-world wedding entirely within SL?

I think in some places a "long distance" marriage is valid. And of course, in others, you can get one in a drive-through.

But why would anyone want to????

When looking at what was needed for our RL wedding, we learned we needed to have the marriage sanctified (or some such word), which basically meant getting the marriage certificate co-signed by an authorized person and returned to town hall. In our case, it was a JP. I don't recall there being anything about an actual ceremony, though our JP took it seriously and it was lovely, even though it was just the 3 of us. I think the authorized signature was the only real requirement.

IANAL, YMMV.

You can pay the Universal Life Church a small fee and become a minister. They have a page about RL marriage laws. I did officiate at a RL marriage in CA. However, I have recently converted to Wicca in SL. (I don't know about their customs.)

Interesting question; Although it's do-able in RL (over video cams even) in SL I don't believe it would/could be binding. Avatars are not RL entities. (gasp, what heresy) and many avatars are married in SL, and Single in RL, and vice versa and....well you get the concept. Key word here is 'virtual' I think.

If they aren't a Rabbi, priest or normal misnister they can also get around it by dressing as a Starship Captain if the ceremony is held in orbit

I'm wondering, why did you even think it necessary to ask this? Are you under the impression that SL has lots of obscure rules, and you're afraid you might have run into one? Or do you think that even though it's not a RL marriage, there might still be some RL laws that prevent acting it out without a minister?

Or is there a RL marriage involved, and you simply want to have an SL wedding as part of the way you observe and celebrate the RL marriage?

It just seems like an odd question, like asking if you need an FAA license before flying a plane in SL.