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About this vendor
SAVOR THE MOMENT, SAVE THE MEMORY
IMAGINE HAVING THE TIME AND SPACE TO EXPERIENCE EVERY DETAIL OF YOUR CEREMONY AS IT'S HAPPENING.
Imagine time has slowed down. You take a deep breath and exhale slowly. You look over at your beloved and realize this is the moment. After all these years, you’re getting married! You feel calm, at ease, completely present, and bursting with joy.
As a professional Maine wedding officiant, I know that when couples feel grounded and relaxed during their wedding ceremony, time seems to slow down. This allows you and your guests to give the moment the significance it deserves and ultimately create richer memories of the ceremony. If you’re provided the space to just “be,” you’ll be able to savor the moment and store the memories!
Your ceremony will be fun without being jokey, it’ll be serious without being solemn, it will be meaningful without being overly sentimental, it’ll be sweet without being sappy. I balance the gravity of this significant moment with enough levity to make it a joyful occasion. Your wedding ceremony experience will be a fabulous celebration for you and your guests!
You will love working with me because I'm down-to-earth; I have a positive, cheery attitude; I'm wicked organized; I'm LGBTQ+ friendly; I'm passionate about my work; and I care about your ceremony as much as you do! I can't wait to hear from you!
Details
Business Attributes
- Woman-owned Business
Ceremony Types
- Civil Union
- Elopement
- Interfaith Ceremony
- Non-Religious Ceremony
- Second Wedding
- Vow Renewal Ceremony
Wedding Activities
- Wedding
- Ceremony
Reviews
Your trust is our goal. Our community relies on honest reviews to help you make those big decisions with ease.
5
out of 5.017 reviews
Lindsay at A Sweet Start was fantastic!!! After meeting her only a few times, I feel like she really understood us as a couple and delivered an amazing, heartfelt ceremony. We got ...
so many compliments from guests on how beautiful (and not cheesy or cliche) our ceremony was, and that is all thanks to Lindsay. Definitely 100% recommend!
If you are looking for the best wedding officiant in Maine, look no further! Lindsay did such an amazing job running our rehearsal as well as officiating our wedding. She's so frie...
ndly, well spoken and easy to work with. Everyone at our wedding couldn't have said nicer things about Lindsay and our ceremony. Our ceremony was made by having Lindsay there and it was one of the decisions we made for our wedding. Book her to have the wedding ceremony of your dreams!
Maria is so incredible! Her process requires you as a couple to sit down & craft a ceremony that fits your personality and vibes. It helps to align you and your partner on the mess...
age you want your ceremony to convey to create a beautiful lifetime memory. The vow writing process she outlines is so helpful. If I had to do the process on my own, I would have been writing them a few days before the wedding. Her process helps you to be mindful and intentional about your words & message, and helps to create a meaningful, memorable, and heartfelt wedding ceremony. There were so many tears at our ceremony. Maria prioritizes a message of mindfulness and being present. It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of the day, but Maria’s guidance helped us to take moments to focus on each other and take dedicated moments to reflect on what the day means. She is so sweet & attentive, and was so flexible to stick with us when we had to change our wedding date during the pandemic. Thank you, Maria!!! You left us with unforgettable memories on such a joyful day!
Maria was the most AMAZING officiant we could have asked for at our wedding. From the day we first hired her she was extremely organized and communicative, funny, professional, det...
ail-oriented, and overall so fun and easy to work with. She helped us create a ceremony that was very personal, meaningful, and completely tailored to us as a couple, but also more beautiful, well-written, and creative than we could ever have come up with on our own. And at the rehearsal and the actual ceremony she was super organized, showed us exactly what to do, and made us and our families feel extremely comfortable. We had so many compliments from guests about how wonderful Maria was and how it was one of the best ceremonies they had ever attended, and we had multiple people ask how many years we had been friends with Maria for since she sounded like she knew us so well! We would absolutely recommend Maria to anyone looking for a wedding officiant - she was one of the best wedding decisions we made hands down!
Finding the right officiant was the highest priority for my husband and I as we started planning our wedding. Maria was everything we could have wanted and more. A true professiona...
l and absolutely wonderful human being. You can rest assured that she has thought of everything and will make sure your wedding day is as stress free and joyful as possible.
The silver lining to delaying our wedding due to Covid was having extra time to work with and get to know Maria. You know you have a special officiant when you are looking forward to seeing her on your wedding weekend as much as guests you’ve known for years! It felt like we had known her forever. She was compassionate and empathetic when we had to postpone our original date and maintained the same level of enthusiasm throughout our long wait. Maria is incredibly organized and “on top of it”. She was communicative and responsive as we planned our ceremony and vows.
Maria made our rehearsal an exciting event in and of itself and set the tone for us to truly enjoy the wedding weekend. Her professional, warm, kind and calm personality shown through during the ceremony. It was personal, meaningful and celebratory. We feel so lucky to have had her be a part of our special day and bring our ceremony vision to life.
Any couple is in the best of hands with Maria as their officiant! She is incredibly warm, easy-going, and fun. I knew I wanted to hire her for our wedding very shortly into our ini...
tial Zoom call with her. Her positive energy and passion for what she does is so present. My husband and I were really clueless on how the whole marriage license process worked, and she walked us through it step-by-step, making it easy for us to accomplish! I would recommend her Super Sweet Ceremony package. The extra cost is WELL worth it! She described us so well in our wedding ceremony - so much to the point that our guests thought she was either part of the family or a family friend! We also had a chatty wedding party and she kept them all in line and organized during our rehearsal ceremony. Maria is an amazing person and I would recommend her to any couple looking for a personalized ceremony that will have their guests smiling, laughing, and (happily) crying.
Maria from A Sweet Start was hands down one of the best decisions we made during our wedding planning. She is simply incredible! From the first meeting a year and a half prior to t...
he wedding, to the big day, she was involved the whole time. Maria was extremely communicative and sincerely wanted our ceremony to portray us as a couple while gently offering professional help. She was patient with us, as we struggled with planning a wedding during Covid which left us making a lot of last minute decisions. As a bride, you will have plenty of added stress and she completely removes that by fully running the rehearsal and emailing your vendors schedules. Family and friends are still taking about how touching and heartfelt our ceremony was and how well-spoken and sincere Maria was. If you get the opportunity to have Maria as your officiant, you are very very lucky. Truly wonderful.
Maria is top notch from getting to know us and working diligently on our needs. She is very quick to respond to any and all questions that we had leading up to our big day. She has...
a variety of options and packages so we could make our ceremony feel the way that we had imagined. We met with her several times in person and a few times on video chat. This made us feel like we had made a strong connection and she understood us as a couple and could continue to guide us on our path. Another great thing that she does is sets deadlines for you. For example we wrote our own vows and she reviewed them two weeks before the event. It may sound like having a homework assignment but it took away the last minute jitters worrying about vows. She also provided feedback on certain grammatical issues and helped build our confidence in what we had written. Day of the ceremony we felt calm knowing that Maria was in control and we just had to follow her lead. I would strongly recommend her my friends and family and anyone else.
Having Maria as our wedding officiant was one of the VERY best decisions we made for our wedding. She was a true joy to work with -- from the beautiful and 100% "us" ceremony she c...
ustom-wrote, to her calm and deeply knowledgeable guidance as we finalized ceremony logistics leading up to the wedding. On the wedding weekend itself, she blew us away with her warmth and skill. Our ceremony was one of the most meaningful and joyful moments of our lives and so much of that was because of Maria's incredible talents -- and her clear passion for the work! She made time slow down and every word matter. We can't thank Maria enough! She's amazing - and now truly feels like family!
We can’t say enough good things about Maria. We took choosing an officiant very seriously, we wanted to find someone who was experienced in the role and could also seem like they k...
new us. By the time the wedding day came Maria didn’t seem like she knew us, she DID know us. She prepared with us so thoroughly and thoughtfully, she couldn’t have been any better. I think no compliment can go any further than the fact we had guests all night telling us how beautiful they thought the ceremony was, and that was because of Maria. We’d recommend her to anyone.
Maria was an absolute dream to work with. From the second that we met her we knew we had to have her officiate our wedding, and it was one of the best decisions we made! I cannot g...
ive Maria enough praise! So many of our guests could not stop complimenting her and her beautiful words. She truly took the time to get to know us as a couple and that reflected in our ceremony. I would absolutely recommend Maria to anyone getting married in the Maine area, you won’t be disappointed! THANK YOU!
Maria delivers such an amazing and unique experience as an officiant. We knew we had made the right decision in hiring Maria immediately after our first skype conversation, and you...
know its a good sign when every other vendor you have booked exclaims "Oh, you booked Maria! She is the absolute best! I love her!". Her connection with the Maine wedding community made her a wealth of knowledge of vendors and logistics, but what makes Maria truly unique and the best officiant we could have ever imagined is the detail and effort she puts into creating a truly one-of-a-kind ceremony. We spent several months going back and forth personalizing every moment of our ceremony, and the end result was something that was so special that we have heard from guests routinely telling us it was the most incredible ceremony they had ever seen. As if that wasn't enough, Maria also makes the rehearsal and ceremony itself completely relaxed and immersive. She has an excellent presence, and was this perfect combination of grounding and calming while also keeping you so present in the moment and the result is that I remember every single detail of our flawless ceremony. She kept all the pieces moving together like clockwork while my husband and I stood there, completely engrossed in the ceremony. I had always loved the idea of being married by an officiant who was a friend and had a sense of our history as a couple. I can truly say that by hiring Maria, we had that experience because it is impossible to not make it down the aisle that day without feeling so close to her, and generating a lasting connection. Thank you so much Maria! You crushed it!
Choosing Maria of A Sweet Start to officiate our wedding day ceremony was hands down the best decision we made during our wedding planning process! My husband and I are not very re...
ligious and knew we wanted to get married outside, but that was about all we were sure of. After meeting Maria on Skype, we knew we could fully trust her to help us create the ceremony of our dreams. Maria custom tailored a ceremony for us that was unique and meaningful and she embraced our idea of a beer ceremony and turned it into reality! My husband and I are in our mid 20's so we thought most of our guests would be talking about "the party" the next day, but everyone could not stop raving about our ceremony! I had multiple people tell me it was the most beautiful ceremony they had ever attended. I cannot recommend Maria enough!
My husband and I were feeling anxious about finding the right person to officiate our wedding. We knew we wanted something special, personal, real, and fun without religious undert...
ones, but had no idea where to begin. We set up a video call with Maria after reading reviews online and felt an immediate connection with her; we knew she was the right person to help us craft our fully-custom ceremony! From that day forward Maria was communicative, clear in her expectations, and available whenever we had additional questions. She set deadlines for us throughout the process, which allowed us to take the time we needed to be thoughtful about the pieces of the ceremony. We went back and forth with her over ceremony drafts 5 or 6 times, and it was finalized about a month before the wedding. I can't tell you how important this piece was - we had so many other things to think about in the weeks leading up to the wedding and I was so happy that we didn't have to scramble to write anything. The week of our wedding, we touched based again just to make sure we had all the timing right, and Maria made great suggestions about how to handle other details, like the processional. When it came time for the rehearsal, Maria was fun and assertive, making sure everyone knew where to be, which took so much pressure off of us and allowed us to relax and enjoy it! Thanks to Maria's help, our ceremony was just as we envisioned it. So many people commented later that they loved her energy and couldn't believe she hadn't known us for years! We watched our wedding video this week and couldn't stop smiling re-living the moment. It was perfect.
I feel like no words in the English dictionary can even come CLOSE to accurately describe how amazing it is to work with Maria. Within minutes of our first FaceTime consultation, w...
e knew she was the one, we just clicked so well! Maria created a completely custom ceremony for us by sending us sample scripts and a ton of different readings and poems, as well as a questionnaire that we each filled out separately. Being very much a type A planner, I cannot tell you how much I worship her organization skills, she was always on top of everything and lightning-fast responsive when we contacted her. Maria has a very warm, calming energy that just made us feel good. We stressed about everything else, but never about this. The ceremony went so well that we had relatives coming up to us later to say how impressed they were with her. They said they’ve been to a lot of weddings, but she was one of the best officiants they’ve seen. Her blog also has a lot of great advice, not just specific to officiating, that was helpful during our planning process. Trust me when I say this: SHE IS WORTH IT. <3
Booking Maria was one of the BEST decisions we made for our wedding. We wanted our ceremony to be personal, intimate, and inclusive. She made it all of those things and more! She t...
ook the time to meet with us and truly get to know us to craft the best ceremony possible. Maria radiates kindness and warmth while being perfectly professional. Basically, she was a dream to work with. And the ceremony itself! Everyone told us how especially beautiful and special it was. It was everyone's favorite part of our wedding. Thank you, Maria!
Maria of A Sweet Start is so incredibly talented, creative, and devoted to each and every one of her clients. From her website, to her blog posts, to her Facebook page, she is cons...
tantly providing you with fun and new ideas to help you organize the perfect wedding ceremony for you and your beloved. She focuses on every last detail of your relationship and really gets to know each of her couples. Her level of interest in making sure she fully captures all the reasons why you two should be married makes you never question your relationship or your decision to hire her as your officiant! We already know we are going to contact Maria when we hit our 5 year mark for some vow renewals! We love Maria and so will you!
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