‘The Officiant Jawn’ has seen it all, from a pajama wedding to a no-show groom

Meet Jaclyn Rodriguez, a Philly native who’s presided over nearly 250 weddings as “The Officiant Jawn.”

As the father-of-the-bride walked his daughter down the aisle at a small wedding at a local apartment complex in 2023, officiant Jaclyn Rodriguez waited for them at the end, with a secret the bride asked her to keep.

“Her father didn’t know that I spoke Spanish until I asked him in Spanish, ‘Who gives this woman away in marriage?’” Rodriguez said. “He started crying on the spot and I was like ‘Don’t do this to me! I’m going to start crying too!‘”

Rodriguez didn’t realize the “huge need” for bilingual officiants in the Philly region before becoming one herself, but today she estimates about 60% of the ceremonies she conducts are in Spanish and English or completely in Spanish.

“People have the option to cater to both sets of guests in the room,” she said. “We can honor someone who doesn’t speak any English, or honor the aunt who doesn’t speak Spanish.”

Since founding her business, “The Officiant Jawn,” in June 2023, Rodriguez, 45, of Northeast Philly, has married 237 couples (she’s marrying her 238th on Valentine’s Day). She averages two-to-three weddings per week, and sometimes manages two or three a day.

“Trust me when I tell you people get married every day of the week at 8 in the morning and at 8 at night,” she said.

In less than two years, Rodriguez has attended more weddings than most people will in a lifetime and she’s seen it all too, from a prison ceremony to a no-show groom.

She’s performed weddings on a bridge, in a basement, and on a beach, and she’s conducted a double wedding, performed vow renewals, remarried couples who’ve been divorced, and wed couples who’ve eloped.

“What I’ve learned about love is that it really can look differently for different people,” she said. “Love definitely does not discriminate.”

Being an officiant also solidified Rodriguez’s own decision to marry her fiancée, Megan, and it’s given the couple a few ideas for what they want at their wedding.

“We’re going to have a hot dog bar with 20 toppings — cheese, chili, fried onions, whatever you want,” Rodriguez said.

Born in North Philly, Rodriguez was a baby when her family moved to Puerto Rico, returning to the city when she was 8.

Living in a Spanish-speaking household, Rodriguez had to learn English upon her move back. Her mother, who raised Rodriguez and her older brother as a single parent, often worked multiple jobs to support her family.

Shortly after graduating from Little Flower Catholic High School for Girls in 1998, Rodriguez gave birth to her daughter, Yaneli, and went to work at a bilingual call center, before taking jobs in recruiting and human relations.

For the last 11 years, she’s worked as a health-and-wellness coach, helping clients with weight loss, fitness, and nutrition.

Rodriguez never dreamed of becoming an officiant, but after attending two very different weddings in May 2023, she felt called to the career.

The first ceremony started two hours late, because the mother of one of the brides was running behind, and the officiant was so upset, they conducted the wedding in less than five minutes.

“We were all looking at each other like ‘What the heck?!?’” Rodriguez said.

The second wedding was officiated by the bride’s father-in-law and moved Rodriguez to laughter and tears.

“It was just the most beautiful wedding ceremony I’d ever been to and a complete 180 from the first one,” she said. “After two glasses of wine, I went up to [the officiant] and asked how he got into this.”

That night, Rodriguez posted on Facebook asking if anyone would want her to marry them. She got three yeses immediately and got to work getting her minister’s license through American Marriage Ministries, a nondenominational online church. She watched countless YouTube videos by other officiants and schooled herself in the marriage laws of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and Delaware.

Rodriguez was inspired to name her business, “The Officiant Jawn,” after a remark she made before conducting her first ceremony in June 2023.

“It was a same-sex couple, one was a former client, I said, messing around, ‘I’m going to say to you, ‘You may now kiss your jawn,’’ and she said ‘Yeah, put that in there!’” Rodriguez recalled. “The crowd went wild. I mentioned it one day in a conversation with my fiancée, and it just stuck.”

Many of the weddings Rodriquez officiates are small and held at homes and restaurants, though she conducts ceremonies at larger venues too.

“I think the home weddings are the most meaningful, they’re the most intimate ones,” she said. “They’re ones where the couples most get to enjoy themselves because it’s not a performance.”

Rodriguez said she’ll never forget a wedding she officiated at a couple’s home that was attended only by them and their 2-year-old daughter.

“The little girl came down the steps in her princess outfit and plastic Cinderella slippers. She was so excited to be dressed to go to mommy and daddy’s wedding,” Rodriguez said. “That’s honestly the wedding I left so touched and so grateful I was chosen for because I got to be in that room and feel that love.”

Then, there was the wedding she conducted by a patient’s bedside. The brother of the bride was battling cancer and the couple wanted him to be their best man.

“We performed the wedding right in his room,” she said. “A couple weeks later, he was gone.”

Rodriguez has also performed weddings at venues she never expected and dealt with situations she thought only happened in movies.

Just last week, she conducted her first prison wedding right in the visiting room at SCI Chester and last year, she had a groom not show up to the ceremony.

“Yes, that really happens in real life,” she said.

More than 100 guests were in attendance and initially, folks just thought the groom was running late, but then Rodriguez went to check in with the groom’s friends and they told her it was unlikely he was going to show.

By the time she went back to the bridal suite, the bride knew the groom wasn’t coming.

“I go back up to her and the best friend is screaming and cursing, I’m like ‘Ladies, let’s pray,' so we all prayed,” Rodriguez said.

The bride wanted to tell the guests, but Rodriguez suggested she go out first to tell everyone to put their phones away so the moment wasn’t recorded.

After the bride told her guests and thanked them for coming, she invited them to stay and celebrate her birthday instead.

“It does happen, and it did happen to me, and it did happen to her,” Rodriguez said. “She wanted to pay me, but I was like, ‘You’re not going to pay me. I didn’t do anything.‘”

Today, Rodriguez is mentoring two new officiants and preparing to launch her next venture, “Bestie Vows,” which she envisions as a ceremony similar to a wedding, where two best friends promise to “solidify their friendship through thick and thin.”

“I’m thinking about the women that are single who want to do something like this,” Rodriguez said. “Sometimes we take sisterhood and friendship for granted. Sometimes we go through life with our bestie and they love us no matter what, so it’s very similar to a spouse. I’m really excited about it.”

Meanwhile, for better or for worse, Rodriguez said she’s seen an uptick in demand for her officiant services since the Trump administration took office.

“I mostly have seen the concern around same-sex marriages because there’s fear that right will be taken from them,” she said. “Or, people that have been together and have kids but haven’t married officially, now they have to worry about being deported if they’re not married to a citizen. There’s a lot of uncertainty right now.”

But if there’s one thing Rodriguez is certain of, it’s love. The love she has for her fiancée, the love she solidifies between others, and the love she sees all around her, all the time.

“Marriage is so dope … I really love love and I just think that the world needs a lot more of that,” she said.