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.

Rev. Bill is the best! My fiancee (now husband) and I met him for coffee in late 2017, and after…read moreone meeting knew that we wanted to move forward with booking him for our 9/8/18 wedding. Throughout the entire process, Rev. Bill was incredibly responsive, met all timelines set and made everything so easy. We did not have a really clear idea of what we wanted for our ceremony, except that we wanted it to be on the shorter side and aligned with our personalities. He wrote the most perfect ceremony which we were able to review and edit months before the big day. We met again about 2 months before the wedding to go over everything, and again our minds were totally put at ease. We had no idea what we were doing, and Rev. Bill's guidance was invaluable. About 3 weeks before the wedding we decided we really wanted to have a rehearsal. Rev. Bill fit it into his schedule with no problem, and was great about giving us, our families and the wedding party the guidance we needed. On the day of the wedding, everything went perfectly! We invited him and his wife to join us for the reception, and it felt like they were part of our group of family and friends. We are SO glad he was available for our wedding date! In addition to him being a great person, Rev. Bill submitted our marriage license right after the wedding, and emailed us a copy with a cute word cloud. He is sending us a bound copy of our ceremony as a keepsake, and even shared a guided meditation in the weeks leading up to the wedding to keep us calm. Rev. Bill is the best, and we would absolutely recommend working with him for your ceremony!

Rev Bill is the best, simply put. He is extremely down to earth and truly has the couple's best…read moreinterest in mind. He is not afraid to go out of his way to ensure your special day is perfect! I would HIGHLY suggest Rev Bill for any weddings!

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!!

We hired David to officiate our wedding in June of 2026. All contact stopped months before the…read morewedding and we had to find someone knew. 1 month after our wedding and we still have no heard from him or gotten our deposit back.

BEST DAY EVER!!! Dave was literally the best person possible to be the person we chose to marry us…read more You'd be surprised how difficult it is to connect with someone online and get a quick and straightforward reply. If you want someone you can trust, someone who is punctual, flexible and genuine, then Graceful Day Officiant is for you! You can really tell when someone is passionate about their profession. And on the most important day of your life, you want someone who can bring out all those feelings and tell a sweet and well-crafted love story. Dave was truly amazing. He was super fun to work with and we are so happy to have shared such a special day with him. He made the whole process really fun. If you have ideas, he's there to listen and guide you. If you want more traditional, he's got you. If you want to hear the story of the beginning of how it all started with you and your hunny, that's the magic right there! My husband and I chose the love story option and I tell you what, it's just so much more special to hear your closest friends and family's perspective and of course your hunny's, right in that moment, in front of everyone during your ceremony. Hearing our love story told like that and hearing it for the first time with all our guests, it was just so magical. We both loved working with Dave and are so grateful to have someone as amazing as him craft our story on the best day of our lives and catapult us into the excitement and joy together as husband and wife. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

I'd give 3.5 stars if I could. Had Pastor B actually performed our ceremony, I'm sure it would have…read morebeen absolutely fantastic. He also performed a mini-counseling session for us a few months before the wedding, which was really, really nice. Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond anyone's control, Brandyn had to call in a replacement just three days before our wedding. I found out in response to an email I sent the day before the rehearsal. While these things happen, it was more than just a little disappointing to learn that the substitute would not be able to make it to the rehearsal dinner. I was promised he would be given all of Brandyn's notes about us, and to expect a call from him. We chatted briefly later that evening, and I felt pretty much 100% reassured. However, it seemed pretty obvious that little was done to fill Pastor Al in: - My first name and our last name was either incorrect or pronounced incorrectly; this distracted us (and our guests) right from the beginning; - The ceremony was religious to a near God-fearing level; definitely did not follow our wishes; - I had mentioned that I was going to have a reading performed in Polish and English, and the Pastor could only comment on how cool "that language was" after it had been done - clearly he had not been informed of certain details and it was so painfully obvious how little he knew about us. The ceremony was definitely still very beautiful and joyous, but I just wish the transition could have been orchestrated a bit more professionally so that I didn't have to respond to "Darina" instead of Daria the rest of the night. Fortunately, everyone was able to laugh these things off, myself included.

Pastor Brandyn Simmons officiated my recent wedding ceremony and he was amazing!…read more My husband and I are NOT religious, but we wanted a beautiful ceremony done by a professional - and Pastor B delivered. We only met with him once, but we immediately got along. He returned any and all of my emails and phone calls quickly. When we met, we let him know a little about our relationship and how we came to be engaged, and he managed to write a great ceremony. He's funny too! Pastor Brandyn made sure our ceremony went smoothly, and unfortunately he had to leave immediately after - but while he was there, he kept both of us calm, and kept things on schedule. He injected enough religion into the ceremony to prevent our grandmas from crying over their rosaries, but not so much that it made me and my husband cringe. Thank you Pastor B!!

Angel was very professional and handled his duties gracefully! He was very punctual and easy to…read morecommunicate with. We were really grateful that he was able to officiate our wedding in Spanish and English. He did our ceremony with love and it made us feel extra special. We received many compliments from our guests on how much they enjoyed our ceremony. I highly recommend him for anyone looking for an upbeat, fun & bi-lingual officiant.

My fiancé and I found Michele Rose listed on a number of wedding websites. After reading her bio,…read morewe felt she might be a good fit for us based on her website. It was important to us to have an officiant who performed all types of ceremonies, especially same sex, as we feel strongly about this topic. I called Michele Rose and we set up a time to meet at a local Panera. We all sat down and chatted for a bit and then we discussed what we were looking for in an officiant. She asked us some questions about our background and showed us a portfolio of weddings she had performed. She also went over her ceremony creation process and we were very impressed. She asked us how she might best get to know us and I suggested she may want to talk with our parents. This idea was very well received and ended up adding a very special touch to our ceremony. Needless to say, we decided to move forward and provided a deposit by check and signed the contract with her prior to leaving. As our wedding drew closer we received an extensive questionnaire from her along with instructions to fill out as much or as little as we were comfortable with. It was a bit like homework, but it was completely worth it. After we completed our questionnaires, our parents were contacted and then we received the first draft of our ceremony. After a few rounds of edits we had everything ready for the big day. In the days leading up to the wedding I sent our DJ and day of coordinator a copy of the ceremony and on our special day things went perfectly. Our friends and family raved about how personalized and "us" the ceremony was. Many asked if Michele Rose knew us outside of being our officiant (she did not). A few of our guests mentioned it was the only ceremony where they both laughed and cried. Overall, the day was perfect, beyond our expectations and we couldn't be more grateful for the personalized, wonderful and memorable ceremony provided by Michele Rose.

Myself and the new bride reached out to Christine, and from the beginning she was absolutely great…read more We had quite a few setbacks in our wedding planner and it seemed that everything that could go wrong did. Christine, assured us that everything would work out and had such a message she gave us, that made us feel at ease. From the beginning she walked us through the process with the county and how to properly to do our license and what was needed. We were lost as our photographer cancelled on us at the last minute and the misses was quite upset as now we did not have a photographer and Christine stepped in and gave us a recommendation that far exceeding our expectations. Even at the last minute booking we were never rushed, we were provided several options for the ceremony and each one was remarkable, it was hard to choose. So we took different options and sent them to her, and let me say it was allot of changes and there was no hesitation as she delivered examples each time, even with a couple last minute changes, I was expecting a different reaction, but we were wrong and she delivered with such grace and patience, I sure would not have had. The day finally came and I met her first, of course the bride was running a bit late, mind you it was 25 degrees out and we were having an outdoor wedding. She came and talked to me and we walked where the ceremony was going to be. It was time, and as my wife was walking down the aisle, she made sure I did not peak bit was telling me how beautiful my bride looked and as a guy you know I wanted to see, but she with military style kept me focused. The time has come, and even with a fur coat, it was really really cold. The ceremony, we never imagined the message that was delivered would ever be that emotional and with love in the message but the love in her voice as she delivered dour ceremony. Not only did we feel it, our guests felt it as she just didn't read through the service, you could feel that it was a true feeling in her voice that was amazing. The only thing I regret, was not getting hand warmers for us, as seriously it was cold but a beat was never missed. Christine, thank you for being a part of our ceremony, thank you for uniting us as one, you will always be part of our family. There are far and few true sincere people that not only believe in their work and take so much joy in what they do. The calling you have is an inspiration to us all. Thank You so much!!!!! Dave and Alissa

Christine did such a great jobshe made the day stress free. Her words were beautiful. She's a girls…read moregirl . Took her time to help me fix my backdrop and helped me poseshe followed up and made sure I picked up my marriage certificate. thank you Christine ! 10/10