It's a mellow
day at Point Dume. A scattering of beachgoers lies in the Malibu sand or
walks ankle-deep inxto the waves, while the occasional sandal-clad
hiker ascends the adjacent hilly path. Over to the side, near a rough
wall of boulders that jut out into the ocean, a couple gets married by a
stocky, jovial man in a flowery shirt. The ceremony couldn't be more
intimate: It's just the three of them, plus the groom's hefty,
well-behaved dog.
The soon-to-be husband is a rough-hewn,
middle-aged guy with salty, punk-rock tattoos on his arms and legs; his
bride is lithe and pretty in an L.A. trophy wife way, with a soft,
European-sounding accent.
Their bond is sealed with some poetic words from the officiant, the stiff breeze carrying the squawking of nearby gulls.
For the newly married, it's a singular experience. For Alan Katz, the aforementioned officiant, it's just another day at work.
Katz
is the king of wedding officiants-for-hire in Southern California. He
estimates he's performed more than 4,000 ceremonies over the years,
catering to the growing demographic of couples who prefer a
nontraditional service, outside the places of religious worship where a
priest or rabbi usually presides.
And in true showbiz style, Katz
doesn't just offer basic ceremonies. If the couple wants, he'll perform
the service in character as an icon like Father Guido Sarducci, Ozzy
Osbourne, Borat or, of course, Elvis. An able impressionist, Katz, 51,
came up as a comedic performer before transitioning to weddings.
“I've been an entertainer since I made my debut on The Gong Show at age 16,” he recalls. “I did a burping act, demonstrating different kinds of burping.”
Katz grew up in the west San Fernando Valley, moving to Long Beach with his mom in high school after his parents divorced.
After
the burping act came stand-up comedy and, in his late 20s, an
accidental foray into singing telegrams after doing a much-loved “Santa
Claus” character at friends' parties. This led to the establishment of
his own singing-telegram company, which offers 50 different characters —
a business that sounds like an anachronism but which he operates to
this day.
Not long after he set up the telegram company, a friend
randomly asked Katz to perform his wedding. It went so well that more
people asked, and it grew from there.
Today, Katz's Long
Beach-based Great Officiants operatives travel around Southern
California, performing an estimated 1,000 weddings a year, with Katz
doing 70 percent of them himself. A typical ceremony is $375, with theme
and custom-designed weddings going up from there.
Many take place
at Great Officiants' 25-seat Long Beach chapel, but Katz has a vast
knowledge of all the various weddings spots in the area, including his
preferred beach spot at Zuma Beach near Point Dume.
“Being an
entertainer and an improv person makes me the perfect person for the
officiating job, because I can handle any situation,” he says. “You
never know what's gonna happen when you get in front of a group.”
At
one outdoor wedding, it was precisely the moment for the big
matrimonial kiss when a helicopter came in low overhead, its blades
chopping loudly.
“I seamlessly go into a little speech: 'I've
hired this helicopter to fly at this precise moment to celebrate the
heights of your marriage,' ” he recalls proudly. “ 'Every time you see a
helicopter, lean over and give him a kiss.' ”
But Katz doesn't just rely on clever improvisation. He is a firm believer in preparation.
“I
approach it as, we're putting on the show, and the bride and groom are
the stars,” he says. “We write the show, we block it, we have everybody
know their parts and we perform it in front of the crowd — their
audience. The audience becomes an integral part of the ceremony. It's a
completely different approach than anybody else has ever taken.”
In
one case, Katz officiated on a Halloween cruise, with the groom dressed
as a bunch of grapes, his bride as a bottle of wine and Katz himself
outfitted as a Roman emperor.
Another time, Katz portrayed Borat
in front of a culturally split audience. “Half the crowd was Latino and
didn't know who Borat was,” he recalls. “When I said, 'Do you take her
as your No. 1 hooker?' half the crowd was like 'Que paso?!', while the other half was laughing in hysterics.”
Katz
even used to officiate at prison weddings. But it's one of the very few
specialties he just can't bring himself to offer anymore.
“I
hated having to ask why they were in there,” he admits. “One time, this
one prison bride says: 'It wasn't his fault. He was dealing the crack
and the other guy tried to steal the crack and the knife slid off the
counter and slit his throat. It wasn't his fault.' ”
A large
physical presence who's both relentlessly cheerful and congenitally
honest, Katz refuses to get syrupy about the nature of his work: “A lot
of people get married because they think they should, or they get
pressured by families or girlfriends.”
While currently single,
Katz has married and divorced twice. (He has two kids with his first
wife.) Of marriage, he says, “It's a great institution. And after a few
years you need to be put in one.” He adds, “But people are still walking
into my office off the street every day.”
While the officiant would like for all the couples he marries to stay madly in love forever, he is also a realist.
“There's an old Twilight Zone
episode with … a military man who can see the glow over his troops
who aren't going to make it,” he says. He adds, “I can see the glow over
the couples that are going to make it.”
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