Bruce did a GREAT job officiating our wedding in September. He was an absolute delight to work…read morewith. He offers a lot of content and framework for those who need guidance or ideas but also allows you to really customize what you want to be included in your ceremony. He has a very kind and calm presence. He knows how to officiate and makes everything very easy. He's a great public speaker, and the words he wrote for us were just perfect. We could not recommend him enough.

We were lucky enough to have Bruce as our officiant, and loved the entire process of working with…read morehim. Using his ceremony tools, we were able to customize our ceremony to fit exactly what we were looking for along with expert guidance every step of the way. He understood our desire to have a short and simple ceremony, but helped us to ensure that it was beautiful and meaningful. Bruce is a wonderful public speaker, and many of our guests commented on how much they enjoyed the ceremony. Most importantly, he is extremely responsive and is just a lovely person - we loved every interaction with him, and couldn't have asked for a better officiant!

What a PHENOMENAL elopement experience! My wife and I eloped in May 2022 and are so incredibly…read morehappy we chose Becky and her team. Every day since we wed, we've raved to each other about how pleasant the day went and how seamless everything was--especially as we've listened to nightmare stories of friends + family trying to plan weddings during COVID. We first met with Becky in March after confirming our date with Chicago's city hall. She was super professional over Zoom and answered all of our questions about the order of the day, what we should bring, and what to expect from her. In addition to her beautiful photography skills, we also decided to work with her hair and makeup team for our wedding day. She connected us to everyone we'd be working with and the whole process went so smoothly. Becky was available via email and text starting from the day we reached out all the way to the moment we met her at city hall. She always responded within hours--super helpful for us--and no questions were left unanswered. She also had a great grip on the logistical aspects of navigating city hall during COVID, which was super handy. On the day of our wedding, our makeup artist, Carla, arrived at our hotel at 6:00am and did our hair and makeup perfectly, based on the pictures we sent in advance. Becky met us at city hall at 9:00am sharp and after getting hitched at the courthouse, took us to several (probably 10-15?) different locations downtown to shoot... plus one spot in Wicker Park we'd specifically requested to have photos taken. My partner and I asked her to coach us through poses and Becky was brilliant, asking us to walk towards her laughing, sneak up on each other, hold kisses for a few moments, and spin in ways that made our clothes shine. Nothing felt awkward or forced. Thus far, we've only received the preview photos from our elopement, but each one is an absolute stunner and SUCH an accurate portrait of our love. OH! And I have to mention, Becky thinks of EVERYTHING. Rain was forecasted on our wedding day, and Becky came equipped with two clear umbrellas. She also brought a tote filled with water, tissues, and gum. It was the perfect place to store my purse and our treats for later plus Band-Aids for when our shoes got pinchy. If I could get married all over again, I'd choose Elope to Chicago in a heartbeat. Becky made our wedding day one full of ease and joy, which is exactly how we wanted to start our married life together. Thank you so much!!

As a 2020 bride, I am thrilled we found Elope to Chicago. Our original plan was to take a vacation…read moresomewhere warm in March and elope there, so when everything in Illinois shut down the very week before our original date, I was crushed. We waited a couple months for Cook County to figure out how to grant marriage licenses virtually. Becky, the owner and photographer behind Elope to Chicago, was one of our top two choices when we were finalizing new elopement plans this summer. She won our business because she was so helpful and helped us solve dilemmas!! We hadn't really explored venues here -- all we cared about was outdoors with some shade from the sun, and safe for our handful of guests -- so we valued her suggestions and flexibility with nailing down a new location, time/date, and an officiant. Prior to our wedding date, we had virtual meetings to plan out the details of our outdoor ceremony and photo session. We discussed our COVID safety precautions in detail -- what we were doing, what our 4 guests were doing, what our official and photographer would each be doing to make it as safe as possible for all involved. We also met with our officiant Jill, who helped us write our vows and personalized our ceremony based on what she learned about us. On our wedding morning, everything was EASY and my biggest stress was doing my own hair and makeup because Elope to Chicago took care of everything else. Our photos are AMAZING! Becky's photos capture the warmth and intimacy we share as a couple, and she had great suggestions for a few playful shots. Really happy to support this local, woman-owned business!

We were married by Rev Pam in Central Park in Des Plaines. She is absolutely fantastic. She was…read morefast to respond to my questions regarding availability. The process to book online is so easy and fast. She is very thorough and covers all the little details. On our wedding day she gave us exactly what we were wanting, a small intimate ceremony. She has such a passion for marrying people. She is absolutely wonderful and we are so happy with our day. Thank you so much Rev Pam, you made our day wonderful!!

If you want an easy,pressure free, cozy, cute wedding, you are at the right place!!!! We got…read moremarried at Pine Manor this September,Thanked Goodness the weather turned out great as we could have the ceremony in the Garden....which looks flowery and romantic.....We chose this venue right away after the walkthrough & delicious pastries served to us .....We had the 30 People Package (the website is informative). Pam did all the planning&Officiating.....She and her assistant were so helpful (you can call them if you have any questions. Pam even helped us figure out the invitation ideas, and she does bouquet,Boutonniere as well, I LOVE the bouquet she made us!).......We had both photos & Video taken (we spent most of the time taking pictures and recording video, well, though it's tiring, I guess the great memory need to be 100% captured ).....Cake looked elegant,tasted great....We toasted with the engraved glasses (with the words we wanted to put on them).....Our Guests loved all the food as we all ate a lot..... If you want your wedding to be private, all close families, you are at the right place as well. The garden ceremony went smoothly even without rehearsal (it was less nerve-racking as you're no stranger to your guests), with all the blessings from families we jumped the broom.....At the end of the day,we all started singing while having dinner & cake. Before we left Pine Manor heading to the Hotel Jacuzzi Suite (including in our package), we got a gift basket from Pam which is real sweet.... And she knows a lot of wedding traditions and stories...... Hope my review is helpful....Now I'm hungry thinking about the food I had on my wedding day.

Rev. Phil was a great and lucky find. My husband and I don't really have the same spiritual views…read moreand we almost went with a friend officiating the wedding. When I changed my mind and decided I didn't want to leave God out of our wedding, I said that I would pay for and find the officiant. I admit I didn't shop around. My wedding planning approach was one and done. Once I found something I liked, I was done "shopping." I liked that Rev. Phil offered a free intro session before committing to his services. After the first one hour meeting, my husband also liked him and we were sold. We did the full package and I'd recommend it. The love story was definitely the best part of the service. It's true what the other reviewers said, people talked about that love story for weeks and months after the wedding. We were willing to make fun of ourselves and this really helped carry-off the fun of the story. Rev. Phil has a great knack for telling a story. Everyone was laughing, including us. So many of our pictures show me looking around to the crowd laughing at my ridiculous self and trying to make eye contact with someone mentioned in the story. We were also able to incorporate a touching candle-lighting memorial for my husband's deceased parents, as well as readings that were a mix of religious and secular. Rev. Phil is very detail-oriented and will give you explicit instructions and details about each part of the service. I found this helpful, as I didn't want to worry about all the details myself. As he says, he's the professional and will take the stress of this part of the wedding off of you. As a bonus, I heard he even "fooled" by super-Catholic mom by wearing his collar. No grief for no Catholic wedding! Rev. Phil really helped make our wedding a perfect, unique and special night! I'd recommend him to anyone!

Reverend Phil. Wow. How do I even begin to express how amazing he made our ceremony? If you're…read morelooking for a personalized ceremony that will engage versus bore your guests, call him today and cross your fingers that he is available. I couldn't begin to count the amount of times we heard how amazing our ceremony was. He will make your guests laugh, cry, and truly feel a part of your story. Although we didn't know him for years, our guests thought that he had known us from the beginning. How cool is that? I know your stressed and the to-do list is never ending. Rev Phil will make this portion of your planning seamless. He will guide you through the details and make it easy. He is organized, insightful, and truly invested in his couples. So, stop reading this and call him today.

Lyvonne did a wonderful job in performing the wedding ceremony. She kept in touch with us…read morethroughout the entire time up to the day of the ceremony. She was very accommodating with any of our special requests. I highly recommend her to anyone. Thank you Lyvonne for everything.

Lyvonne was fantastic to work with! We hired her when all of our wedding plans changed due to Covid…read moreand we downsized to just our immediate family in attendance. She was great to work with, open to all of our changes during the ceremony. Our families had such lovely compliments to say about her and the ceremony and we loved having her as a part of our special day!

Brad feels like part of the family at this point! After our first call with him, we knew he would…read morebe the ideal officiant for our wedding - we weren't disappointed! He made our love story the focal point of the ceremony, and kept our guests engaged and even entertained! My husband and I are so grateful that we chose Brad to play such a pivotal role in our big day. He even made sure to check in with a groomsman who had an unfortunate axe incident at the wedding venue (see photo below!). We cannot recommend him enough!

My husband Eric S. and I initially hired Reverend Brad for our 100 person wedding planned for March…read more29, 2020. His vendor profile caught our eye because of the good reviews, his big smile, and the Journey t-shirt he wore as he officiated someone's wedding (we're big 80's rock fans). Our initial communications with Rev. Brad were great. He responded quickly and didn't badger us with constant phone calls/texts/emails while we narrowed down our top officiants to meet up with. Once we decided to meet with him, we had a long, in depth meeting that lasted more than an hour. He happily walked us through all wedding planning timelines and what documents we would need to get our marriage license, as well as what his services would look like. We loved how interested he was in our love story, interests, and desires for our wedding day. Six months later, it was time for our final meeting before the wedding. Rev. Brad took his time to create the perfect ceremony for us. The meeting took about two hours and we left feeling very confident that we would have the ceremony of our dreams... until March came around. With COVID-19 on the rise and everything shutting down, like many other couples, we were forced to postpone our wedding. Rev. Brad was very understanding and was able to accommodate our new wedding date on June 7th which was later postponed again to October 2020 (fingers crossed). As weeks went by COVID-19 kept going strong and our wedding license kept collecting dust on our table, about to expire. So, we decided to elope. We called Rev. Brad and asked if he would be willing to marry us in a quick, socially distanced ceremony at a nearby park. He said "absolutely" and was able to marry us in a very sweet, intimate ceremony during a gorgeous day in April with both sets of parents attending via videocall. We are looking forward to having our big (or at least bigger) celebration in October when Rev. Brad can tell our love story in front of our friends and loved ones. Whether you're looking to have a big ceremony or a small, intimate elopement, we absolutely recommend Rev. Brad.

I read somewhere that premarital counseling is positively correlated to successful marriages. My…read moreown opinion of marriage was dubious after witnessing seemingly unhappy marriages and happy divorces all around me. I surveyed many married people about the secrets to their success and always cringed when they responded in a sarcastic manner indicating that their relationship was no longer as glowing as it once was and it was merely a habitual status quo of ennui. I wanted none of that for myself! Finding a premarital counselor proved harder than expected. I asked the Unitarian Temple in Oak Park and the Congregational Church across the street. Neither of them provided the services I sought nor did they offer up any referrals. I found a non-religious organization online that offered something like five sessions and a workbook outlining specific lessons; however, they never returned my calls. That's when I found Celebrate Love Chicago and Jeffrey. Jeffrey and I played a fine game of phone tag that resulted in our first contact being way too exuberant and familiar on my part than his want. I definitely caught him off guard and he seemed skeptical of me. We scheduled our first consultation. I learned from his website that his first consultation was free and also that he had a premarital counseling deal that's $450 for five sessions. We told him we wanted to take advantage of that deal and he agreed. At our second meeting I was disappointed that he sprang on us that our first meeting (the consultation) was included in those five sessions. I quickly learned that Celebrate Love Chicago is a small operation. Although it definitely has it's charm being in Andersonville, having free drinks, samples, and literature in the waiting area, and a therapy dog... Well. I think that Jeffrey runs it all by himself which explains all the phone tag, occasional lost emails, and no formal billing process. It's a lot to handle and I am pretty sympathetic about it all even though I was initially annoyed. We learned a lot about how to format the framework of our relationship from Jeffrey. I won't disclose the points that he taught us but I will say that sometimes our tempers flared when he poked into certain problems. Our relationship is rosy and our disagreements are small. We didn't like it when we would dwell on one of our hiccups when we already considered it resolved. Now we understand Jeffrey's method and we know he was simply using those problem points as an example for his framework. We have found his framework to be extremely helpful and now we observe other couples and think that they need a little Jeffrey in their lives too. Fortunately he gave us plenty of cards to distribute and I've already handed out four!

So, the fiance and I hired Jeffrey Sumber to be our officiant and part of the costs require three…read morepre-marital sessions. Since we wanted ours to be non-religious/secular, Jeffrey had asked us to come in so he could get to know us better and help us shape our ceremony to be befitting of us - what a great concept! Our first intro session was FREE (yes, some things in life are free which is very very nice, especially if you're paying for a wedding anyway) and then, he also gave us a 50% discount after four pre-marital sessions with him - we've found his pre-marital sessions are extremely helpful - it's nice to have things laid out in a different manner. He's helping us see past the present and really help us lay out the foundation for our 'culture' together and for our lives together as one. He's also helping overcome little obstacles and something as silly as "why we fight over the center of the bed" - we're very confident in his abilities and look forward to having a beautiful ceremony that is catered to our personalities and our relationship. I highly recommend him as an officiant (if you're going the non-religious route) and a counselor. Plus his office is right next door to Hopleaf and La Donna - another bonus right there, too! With less than three weeks away for the wedding, we're very pleased with the outline of the ceremony and how it's turning out exactly what we could have imagined - it's very personalized to the two of our personality and relationship. I'll edit this after the wedding. EDIT: Our ceremony was fabulous and Jeffrey definitely added quite a bit of personalization and flair to our wedding. He even made a little slipup which was actually really endearing because you could tell that he's spent quite a bit of time with us! Thank you again, Jeffrey!!

Sheri did a phenomenal job as our ceremony officiant! From the very beginning, she asked us such…read moregood questions and took amazing notes to try and understand us better as a couple. We wanted our guests to have fun at our wedding, and Sheri made the ceremony feel upbeat and fun while still being incredibly heartfelt, personal and full of love. We received rave reviews from all of our guests about what a great job she did. I cannot recommend her enough!

First of all Sheri is a professional who is also a pleasure to work with…read more She officiated the ceremony for my wife's celebration of life. Sheri spent the time to meet with the family, see pictures, and engage us to tell her stories and understand the family profile and dynamics. We she spoke she was so relateable, that she could have been a family member. Simply said she's worth way more than 5 stars!

Lilian is great and super easy to work with! She helped us with our bilingual wedding ceremony. She…read moreprovided us with a script ahead of time so we knew what to expect and has beautifully written ceremonies that everyone at our wedding was able to enjoy.

Lilian spreads positivity. She makes the ceremony personal, yet structured. She provided…read morescripting, organization and dedicated rehearsal. A number of our guests commented on how great of a job she did. My wife and I would recommend her services to anyone.

Erica was so incredibly helpful, kind and patient thoughout our wedding planning process. She was a…read moreperfect guide though uncharted waters, helping us keep on track. I am incredibly shy but I found it so easy to open up to Erica and she was mindful of this with regards to ceremony planning as well. Our ceremony was personal, meaningful, short, and everything we could have asked for plus somethings we would have never even thought to ask for! My husband and I both come from families deeply rooted in the Catholic faith. We were nervous about how our famillies would feel about our non-religious wedding but everyone was both touched and impressed by how it turned out. I will be forever grateful to Erica for playing such an integral role in our special day.

Erica was incredible. Getting married during a pandemic was not an easy task and she made it…read morebeautiful and so so much easier. We owe her a lot and we strongly recommend her services. She was kind, fun and generous. She really has a big heart and in that business, it makes a difference.