12 Celebrities Who Have Officiated Weddings

Most people rely on a judge, justice of the peace, or a member of the clergy to perform their wedding ceremony. (Despite what you've seen in movies, a ship's captain is not usually sanctioned to officiate at wedding ceremonies just by virtue of being a captain.) However, almost anyone can officiate a wedding by becoming an ordained minister of the non-denominational Universal Life Church. The process is as simple as registering online—and quite a few celebs have taken the church up on that offer.

1. STEVIE NICKS

Singer Stevie Nicks has long been associated with with the Pagan or Wicca religion because of some of her songs and her fashion sense, but she is no witch. She is ordained through the Universal Life Church, though, and in 2013, Nicks officiated at the wedding of her friends Vanessa Carlton and John McCauley. The wedding of the two musicians was held outdoors at an undisclosed location, and not many details about the ceremony were available—but in an Instagram post, McCauley made clear that Nicks nailed it: "She's a badass reverend. It was an awesome ceremony. Thank you Stevie!"

2. TOM HANKS

When actress Allison Williams of the TV series Girls married College Humor founder Ricky Van Veen last fall, Williams asked Tom Hanks to officiate. Hanks spent $35 to become an ordained minister so he could fulfill her wish. “If you want to call me the Right Reverend Tom Hanks, I think you should,” he joked to Extra’s AJ Calloway. "I'm for rent. If you can afford the honorarium, I'll be there for ya." His advice for all couples? "Don’t be stupid. I think that anybody that gets married is partaking in an act of bravery."

3. GUY FIERI

In February 2015, celebrity chef and TV host Guy Fieri officiated at a mass wedding for 101 same-sex couples in Miami shortly after the state of Florida lifted the ban of same-sex marriage. The event was organized by chef and Florida native Art Smith, and was free for the couples who participated. A third celebrity chef, Duff Goldman, made a seven-tier cake for the occasion.

4. JIMMY KIMMEL

When Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux were wed last summer, the officiant was Jimmy Kimmel. According to Howard Stern, the late night talk show host did "a beautiful job" with the ceremony, which may have had a little something to do with his experience: Kimmel also officiated when Matt Damon and his wife Luciana renewed their vows during a three-day celebration in St. Lucia in 2013.

5. KESHA

Singer Kesha (now without the dollar sign) became an ordained minister in order to officiate at the 2012 wedding of two female friends. Two years later, she wrote in an essay for CBS News that "It was such an amazing experience to help two beautiful women cement their commitment to each other through marriage." In 2015, she did it again for her hair stylist Vittorio Masecchia and Felipe Noqueira.

6. KEVIN SMITH

Filmmaker and comedian Kevin Smith is known as Silent Bob and host of the TV show Comic Book Men—and he's also an ordained minister in the Universal Life Church. He has officiated at quite a few weddings, usually with a geeky touch. In 2015, he presided over the wedding of a couple of fans during New York Comic Con. The ceremony was on top of a double-decker bus during a city tour, and incorporated vows from the TV show Game of Thrones. At another wedding this year in Nashville, Smith incorporated the oath from the comic book Green Lantern into the vows. The videos for both weddings contain NSFW language.

7. DWAYNE "THE ROCK" JOHNSON

Screen Junkies via YouTube

Screen Junkies reporter Nick Mundy is a friend and fan of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. The two actually once made a video together in which Mundy begged The Rock to be the best man at his upcoming wedding. In May 2015, Mundy attended a press appearance in which he was supposed to interview Johnson about his new movie San Andreas. It turned out the event was fake, and was actually a surprise wedding, arranged by Johnson in collaboration with Mundy’s then-fiancée Dilara Karabas. Johnson didn't just attend the wedding—he also became ordained in order to officiate. During the ceremony, Johnson quipped, “Nothing is more powerful than your union, carries more force than a bolt of lightning—or even the world’s largest earthquake,” he said. “Much like the one you’ll see in San Andreas, in theaters May 29th. You can see it in 3D!” The entire event was captured on video, of course.

8. CONAN O'BRIEN

The Marriage Equality Act in New York legalized same-sex marriage as of late July 2011. On November 3 of that year, talk show host Conan O’Brien was in New York to celebrate the first anniversary of his TBS show. On that night's broadcast, he officiated the wedding of Scott Cronick, his long time costume designer, to his partner, UCLA drama professor David Gorshein. The ceremony, held at the Beacon Theatre, is believed to have been the first on-air same-sex wedding. The couple lives in California, where the wedding would have been illegal at the time. O’Brien was ordained through the Universal Life Church, a process he explains in this video.

9. BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Sherlock Holmes himself, actor Benedict Cumberbatch, officiated the wedding of his friends Seth Cummings and Rob Rinder in 2013. He became ordained for the ceremony, which took place on a beautiful cliffside on the Mediterranean island of Ibiza.

10. SIR IAN MCKELLEN

Sir Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian McKellan have long been friends, and when Stewart married singer Sunny Ozell in 2013, McKellan served as the officiant. It was the second wedding McKellan had officiated after becoming ordained through the Universal Life Church.

11. JONAH HILL

When Maroon 5 singer Adam Levine wed Victoria’s Secret model Behati Prinsloo in 2014 in Mexico, the officiant was Oscar-nominated actor Jonah Hill. Levine and Hill go way back because their fathers went to school together. "Our dads met in the principal's office in junior high," Hill told Howard Stern in 2014. "We were in carpool. We lived at each other's houses."

12. EMMA STONE

During the filming of the movie Gangster Squad, actress Emma Stone introduced her publicist Holly Shakoor to the movie’s director, Ruben Fleischer. The two hit it off, with encouragement from Stone. When the couple got married in 2012, they asked Stone to officiate, which she was happy to do.