About this vendor
Golden Oak Weddings brings you naturally beautiful wedding ceremonies, no matter what the setting. We draw from your stories and style to create original, customized ceremony texts and rituals, and we help you discover and articulate the values that will guide you through your life together. We think calm and happy couples enjoy their weddings more, so we do all we can to help you have a delightful day.
We're also authorized to issue confidential marriage licenses for ceremonies taking place anywhere in California. We make the legal part of getting married sweet and easy so you can focus on other parts of your wedding experience. See website for details.
We welcome couples of all faiths (or lack thereof) and are a marriage equality-affirming company. We hope to be of service to you soon.
Details
Ceremony Types
- Civil Union
- Commitment Ceremony
- Elopement
- Interfaith Ceremony
- Non-Religious Ceremony
- Religious Ceremony
Religious Affiliations
- Buddhist
- Christian
- Interfaith
- Jewish
- Reform
- Pagan
Wedding Activities
- Wedding
- Ceremony
Reviews
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you make those big decisions with ease.
5
out of 5.09 reviews
Elizabeth Oaks (Golden Oak Weddings) performed our wedding ceremony at The Victorian in Santa Monica last month. She was great. She took the time to get to know us. She helped us p...
ut together a unique ceremony that we were very happy with. We highly recommend her.
Elizabeth is the absolute best. I regret how long it's taken to write this review, but things got hectic in the few months following our fall wedding. Just the other day, I was thi...
nking about the wedding and still, all these months later, the ceremony remains my favorite part of the day. I'm SO happy that Elizabeth was available and willing to be part of the wedding.
Working with Elizabeth was great. We clicked immediately and my husband and I knew she would make the ceremony special, setting the exact right tone for the wedding itself as well as the step we were taking. I'm Jewish and he isn't, but it was important to me to have some Jewish customs involved while somehow not getting too God-y. Elizabeth had the perfect answers and suggestions to satisfy my need to connect with my culture, while still being accessible to my Methodist, midwestern in-laws. We are still hearing from friends and family about how wonderful the ceremony was.
In the months leading up to the wedding, things were stressful (duh). But working with Elizabeth was always a bright spot. She not only took great care tailoring a ceremony exactly for us, but she encouraged my husband and me to talk about why, exactly, we were getting married. In all of the wedding planning prep and commotion, I was able to know that we were on the same page. This is in large part because of Elizabeth's guidance. She truly went above and beyond. I cannot recommend her enough.
A friend recommended Elizabeth's services to us - it was one of the best recommendations that we got. Elizabeth was one of the best choices we made. We are very thankful for all of...
her helpful tips, her calming presence, and her reminders of what marriage is really about.
We got so many compliments on the ceremony and how beautiful it was. Thanks to Elizabeth we also planned some parts of the ceremony that were very meaningful and memorable to us, to our close friends, and to our parents. For example, we had ideas about having each wedding party member read a line of a poem. Elizabeth has a lot of experience - you will feel secure in her hands, your wedding stress will be greatly reduced if you have her on your team. She helpfully pointed out that it might be awkward with passing down a mic and needing the sound to be set up in a certain way. She came up with the idea of each wedding party member putting their hand on our shoulder. We practiced it, altered it a little, and it ended up being one of the most memorable parts of the ceremony. I will always remember those short moments looking at each wedding party member's eyes and smiling at them (and trying not to cry!). We also wanted to incorporate some cultural elements into the ceremony with a hand blessing. Elizabeth helpfully suggested an arrangement for where a table for the ritual should be placed.
Elizabeth also has a lot of wisdom about love and life. Many of our family members seemed to be quite contemplative during and after our wedding. Her message made us all stop and think and reassess our relationships and our efforts to love one another.
Before the ceremony, Elizabeth was always super prompt with responding to emails. She also help prepared us mentally for the day in terms of carving out some time to spend one-on-one together, warning us of competing demands for our attention, and reminding us of the importance of what we were doing among all the fuss and fancy of the wedding day.
We were working in a short time frame, and Elizabeth was on top of everything. She helpfully kept us on track in terms of sending us potential readings/wordings, receiving feedback from us, and sending us revisions. She is a true professional, organized, and a kind and generous soul.
Elizabeth also went above her duties in meeting us on a Thursday night before the wedding for some paperwork to save us some time on the wedding day. She also printed out beautiful copies of our vows, readings, and messages to our parents. Our parents loved the cards that she printed. These were delightful surprises. Thank you, Elizabeth!
We had a lovely wedding day thanks to Marriage-to-go. We had this crazy idea to get married in a gondola and the Marriage-to-go officiant Elizabeth did not have a problem with that...
at all. So we ended up keeping our balance, while we were standing in a gondola.
Afterwards, she even went out to dinner with us and our small wedding party.
Today, after almost 14 happily married years, I can still thank Marriage-to-go for listening to our wishes and really making it our day.
We were one of Elizabeth's first clients when we exchanged our vows in November of 2001. We had a small intimate service in Palm springs. WE only had a 3 week engagement but Elizab...
eth worked quickly and professionally to get our marriage license in order. She helped us put together our own vows. She was wonderful at helping the ceremony flow so gracefully. I felt so calm as she was so nurturing through the process and the ceremony. My husband and I felt like she was the perfect person to marry us. We had the BEST experience. I have reffered her to other couples and if we ever decide to renew our vows, we will be calling her!
When we decided to get married, it was five days after we discovered we were pregnant with our first child. Elizabeth helped us prepare vows (which we wrote ourselves incorporating...
elements she had provided) and assembled the necessary paperwork so that our "shotgun" wedding went off without a hitch.
We will be eternally grateful for her help on our big day.
My hubby and I were probably two of the only people on earth who had never been to a wedding before our own (crazy, but true!) and Elizabeth made us feel so at ease about the whole...
thing. She was so open to doing whatever we wanted to do - gave us some samples to read through, but was open to anything, which made us very happy since we are both pretty non-religious. She had some really great suggestions (wearing a piece of jewelry to honor a family member no longer with us or for my husband and I to take a few minutes just the two of us right after the ceremony, which was special). In short, she made us feel unique and special and really guided us nervous introverts through the whole process with joy and grace.
Elizabeth was an easy choice from the minute she said we can conduct our interview via Skype. Saving gas and techno savvy = win/win. Plus she donates part of her fee to help local ...
environment non-for-profits. She's like a warm breeze, super easy, super calming and very welcoming. She gives you everything you could ask for and some that you didn't know you needed. Always prompt to answer an email and soothe your worries. I recommend her highly.
Rev. Elizabeth Oakes was a pleasure to work with and was fantastic at not only taking care of all of the paperwork but working with us to create the perfect ceremony. She was incr...
edibly flexible and a huge resource for various ceremony text and readings.
Contact
Santa Monica, CA | Southern California/worldwide
Golden Oak Weddings's photos