Hire us for your wedding?

Music and officiant services for EA weddings

Four years ago, I asked my good friend Buck to lead the live band for my wedding and he did a phenomenal job. The next year, Buck asked me to officiate his wedding, and he told me I “went really hard” and it was “the best non-obvious choice” they made for their wedding.

We love weddings, and we loved getting to be a part of each other’s weddings. We also developed some perspectives on what weddings are for and how they should be designed, especially for couples who share our core values and way of thinking and take seriously that AI could radically transform the world very soon. So we’re trying out doing an extremely part-time EA wedding services business together.

The current plan is to offer three services (you could pick one, two, or all three):

• I officiate the ceremony (I’m an ordained minister¹), creating a custom script for you based on interviewing you. I could also emcee toasts or other events if you want.

• Buck organizes and leads a live band to play for the reception (and ceremony, if you want).

• Either or both of us offer advice and thought partnership on the vision for the main content of the wedding:

  • Your vows (e.g. how to define the meaning of this promise if you’re a rationalist type who’s very intense and particular about promises; how to handle the possibility that you might live a much-longer-than-natural lifespan because of rapid acceleration in technological progress).

  • The ceremony (e.g. what tone to strike, what length to shoot for and how sections should flow into each other, what rituals or symbolism to incorporate, which loved ones should have official parts).

  • Other wedding programming (e.g. toasts, pre-ceremony events).

We would not offer any traditional “wedding planner” services (things like booking the venue, hiring and managing vendors, decorating, etc).

This is very experimental, and there’s a lot to figure out. For one thing, we haven’t figured out our philosophy on compensation. Making money is not at all the point, and we don’t want to turn down someone who might be a great fit if they aren’t able to pay at-market prices. But on the other hand, getting paid is also a good signal that we’re actually adding as much value as we aim to add to your wedding. For now, we’re imagining a pretty informal “pay what you want”² structure; we’d discuss the details with you in advance if you hire us.

If you’re potentially interested in this, you can fill out this form. We’re hoping that we can find one or two weddings this year that are an especially great fit for us. We have full-time jobs that matter to us a lot and can take a lot out of us, so we may end up not taking on any clients in the end. But if we do take on a job for your wedding, I’m confident we’ll deliver a great experience.

1. Though to be clear, it’s trivial to become one at American Marriage Ministries.

2. We would want to be reimbursed for costs (e.g. for renting and transporting music gear, or flying to a different city). If you’d be really excited about hiring us but are worried you might not be able to afford that, let us know.