About this vendor
I invite you to share your hopes for your ceremony, and will work to help you shape a ceremony that truly represents you and your beloved. I specialize in Jewish, interfaith, and spiritual (not necessarily religious) ceremonies, and enjoy the process of making each ceremony uniquely joyful.
Details
Ceremony Types
- Civil Union
- Commitment Ceremony
- Interfaith Ceremony
Religious Affiliations
- Interfaith
- Jewish
- Spiritual
Wedding Activities
- Wedding
- Ceremony
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Reviews
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5
out of 5.08 reviews
Cathy Lawrence is a warm, welcoming, knowledgeable and flexible officiant to work with. We were looking for elements of a Jewish service that would make both us and family members ...
feel comfortable, and Cathy crafted a great balance for us. We learned so much in the process, about Cathy, about each other, and it made the ceremony such a special experience. She is highly recommended for her candor and her spiritual guidance.
My now-husband and I struggled for months trying to figure out what type of ceremony and officiant to have. We are both atheists, his family is religious and Christian, mine is ath...
eist Jewish. Cathy helped us create a ceremony that we--and our families--really loved. She was very responsive, had lovely suggestions and was extremely receptive to suggestions that we made. Everyone cried, and all our guests from my husband's super-Catholic uncle to my (very very picky) Jewish atheist parents said how beautiful and moving the ceremony was.
We added a quote from the Massachusetts opinion legalizing gay marriage, as many of our closest friends are gay, and we wanted to show solidarity; Cathy helped us work it into the ceremony in an organic and meaningful way. We loved having delicious ginger tea at her apartment, and really can't emphasize enough how warm and kind she is!
After so many officiants who seem apathetic, fake (or worse, cheesy!) we were so happy to find Cathy, who we felt shared in the emotions of the day deeply and with real sincerity.
Cantor Cathy was fantastic. She went above and beyond to do something different. I'm Jewish and my now-husband is Hindu. In lieu of having two separate ceremonies we decided to c...
reate our own, Hinjew, wedding which combined aspects of both the Jewish and Hindu traditions. She spent extra time with us (and the Hindu officiant) to sit down and discuss the traditions, what they meant and how they fit together. She really added a personal touch to the ceremony and she oversaw the ketubah signing as well. We got many compliments from our guests about what a great job she did tying the two religions together. We highly recommend her.
We were so lucky to have found Cathy! Not only did she do an amazing job at our wedding, she is truly a lovely person also! Our guests had a lovely time at our ceremony. Cathy inv...
olved all our guests, everyone raved at what a nice ceremony it was! We would recommend Cantor Cathy to everyone. We are so happy we have also made a new friend.
Cathy was fantastic to work with. She helped us plan, prepare, and guide us through all of our questions, requests, concerns and everything else we didn't think of ourselves! She w...
as very patient and understanding and came up with great ideas to help make our day even more special. We couldn't have done it with out her and are so happy to have had her officiate our wedding.
Cantor Cathy Lawrence totally surpassed our expectations. She helped to make our wedding so special and personal, everything we dreamed of. The planning portion of the wedding cere...
money brought my now husband and I so much closer. It was a great experience working with Cathy.
We can't thank Cathy enough for making our wedding day (and our ceremony) truly amazing.
It was extremely important to us that in choosing our officiant, we would find someone w...
ho was: patient, open (as we are an interfaith couple and wanted to work with an officiant who was willing to craft our ceremony with us), willing to get to know us beforehand so that our ceremony would feel personal, and able to guide us as we discovered exactly what we wanted our ceremony to be. Cathy far exceeded all of our expectations.
We spent sessions over dinner, over emails and over glasses of wine honing in on what "our" ceremony was going to be. Cathy was so gracious, so patient, so knowledgeable and made the process so easy. When our day arrived, she was so emotionally connected to us, it really felt like the person marrying us actually KNEW us as a couple. It added something really special, moments we will never forget. There was not a dry eye at the ceremony (Cathy too!), and I've never heard so many people comment on how wonderful the officiant was.
We honestly searched high and low for someone who was willing to work with us on getting the ceremony to be 'ours' -- someone who wasn't stuck in tradition. Thank heavens we found Cathy Lawrence.
My husband and I have very different backgrounds. I am white and raised as a reform Jew with interests in Buddhist philosophy, and he is a black christian. We decided it was impo...
rtant for us to have a Jewish wedding, but not so religious that it made anybody in the family uncomfortable (including us!). I came across a recommendation for Cathy after a lot of internet digging, and looking back I am glad I found her. Cathy was sweet and easy to get along with, very open minded, and a good listener. She understood exactly what we were looking for in our ceremony, and worked with us to create a ceremony that met our ideal word for word. She had no problem using or omitting any Jewish traditions, incorporating outside readings and prayers or songs, and was constantly available to talk to us throughout the engagement period. On the wedding day she arrived early and spent some time with my family and I in the bridal suite. The ceremony itself was gorgeous and I feel that it went exactly how my husband and I envisioned it to be. After the wedding Cathy was on top of the paperwork part of getting married, and handled all of the marriage certificate application work with punctuality. Also, her fee was absolutely reasonable, especially considering the phenomenal job she did! We met with some Rabbis who charge twice as much as her. We really love Cathy and definitely recommended her to anybody looking for a Jewish flavored interfaith wedding!
Contact
229 West 97th Street,, New York, NY
Cantor Cathy Lawrence's photos