JOURNEYS OF THE HEART Ceremony Officiants

My husband and I are not very religious, but still wanted a personal and spiritual ceremony. We selected Diane as our officiant and were so lucky that she was available! She was a perfect fit for us. We meant with Diane via Skype to learn more about the process and her... Read More experience - we booked her right after that call, because it was clear that she is a true professional with a true passion for wedding ceremonies. Not to mention, she has so much experience - she's seen and dealt with it all! She sent us a rough draft of our ceremony with options built in for us to choose from, such as unity ceremony options, reading options, etc. There were multiple options for almost every aspect of the ceremony script, which gave us the opportunity to customize it. Among these options were over 30 different vows that my husband and I mixed and matched to create our individualized vows that said exactly what we wanted to say to one another (without the pressure of having to completely free-write our vows). Diane totally knows what she is doing. For example, she taught us how to take the rings and put them on each other in a seamless way. She stepped aside and whispered the vows in our ear so that the focus would be on us saying the words - and we were able to look at one another the entire time instead of at a paper. Before the ceremony, she talks to the DJ, the wedding party, and anyone reading at the ceremony to ensure that everyone is informed about their duties and on the same page. We were continually impressed by Diane. Many of our guests told us throughout the night that it was one of the most beautiful and personal wedding ceremonies they had ever been to. That it had felt like us. It was truly magical- such a wonderful memory. Thank you for everything, Diane! Highly, highly recommended!!

Our officiant was Maria Odilia Romeu and we could not have been happier with how she officiated our wedding (and also how she prepared us for our wedding day). My wife and I are both somewhat perfectionists - the type of people who research and read a hundred reviews before... Read More committing to anything - and we met with many officiants before working with Maria. What initially caught our attention was her warm, calming presence, and also her seriously organized and professional way of discussing wedding plans. That first impression became a lasting reality, leading all the way up to the wedding day. Maria made sure we were right on schedule every step of the way, from writing our personal stories, to writing our vows; and her calmness and eloquent demeanor really made our ceremony stress-free, I'd say even zen-like. I think my favorite aspect to Maria's style is how much effort she puts into personalizing the wedding story. She really took the time to get to know us, to craft and tell our story in a way that matched our personalities, was genuine, and provided just the right amount of humor. In other words, nothing felt "scripted". In fact, so many of our guests described our ceremony as being "inspirational" and we have to give Maria full credit for that! Something else that one of my groomsmen pointed out, and it's very true: Maria makes the wedding about YOU, about the beloved couple. My best man said, "She gets out of the way," and though that sounds funny, what he meant is she didn't dominate the ceremony. The bride and groom is always the center of attention. I've noticed in a lot of weddings the officiant will be in the center and often the guests are paying more attention to the officiant than the bride and groom. Maria makes an effort to stand next to the couple (not between them) and holds the microphone up to them in such a way where it is not intrusive. I know this sounds a bit difficult to imagine (it is hard to explain without seeing it), but the point is that Maria does all she can to make the day YOUR special day. I should mention that our wedding was somewhat spiritual, but non-denominational. Maria could clearly do any type of wedding - religious, spiritual, or not - and I think it would have the same inspiring, warm, and joyous vibe. It's been just over three months since our wedding and out of all the moments in the night, it's the ceremony itself we keep going back to, keep remembering with nostalgia. It's the most important part of the night -- and I am so grateful we had Maria's guidance and expertise. It was perfect, thanks to her. Chad & Kelly Wedding: 03/24/2017 Venue: Hotel Du Village, New Hope PA

Our officiant was Bob Pillegi. He officiated our wedding on May 13th at the Reading Country Club and he did a BEAUTIFUL job! We were very pleased with Journey's of the Heart and Bob in particular. We first contacted Journey's of the Heart because of a friend recommendation.... Read More Journey's of the Heart was quick to respond and send me a link to see profiles of the officiants in my area. It was really great to get to read about each one and get to know them a bit. Because of this we were able to make a list of our top 3 that we would like to meet in person and go from there. We only met with one officiant, Bob, because right away we knew he was a great fit for us! He had great humor and a genuine love for his work that was very obvious. He was very helpful when it came to creating our ceremony and offered a lot of helpful input and tips! Wedding day he met with each of us (bride and groom) individually and helped to calm our nerves and give us tips as well. He was very patient and loving and we were so grateful for him!

Eve from journeys of the heart provided us with the most beautiful ceremony. Many people have told us it was one of the most personal, heartfelt ceremonies they have ever witnessed. My husband & I come from different backgrounds (Catholic & Jewish), but are not very religious... Read More ourselves. We really just wanted a highly personal ceremony that told our love story, while blending in some traditions from our different backgrounds. Together with Eve, we crafted an absolutely beautiful ceremony! We met with her in person once, and had unlimited e-mail communications with her. She made sure we were 100% happy with our ceremony before our big day. Eve is very warm, and we were drawn to her because of her bio on journeys of the heart's website. We are so happy with our big day - thank you so much Eve & journeys of the heart!

Gabby, our officiant was awesome. We had concerns about making our interfaith ceremony work, but she made the whole process of creating and going through our ceremony so easy. She even gave us an idea of a memory wine box, which we put a bottle of wine that we like a lot and... Read More letters to each other, to open on our 1 year anniversary. The ceremony was beautiful and Gabby did an excellent job making it very personal. We loved the ceremony and even got numerous compliments from guests for how personal and beautiful it was.

We received dozens of compliments about how amazing our ceremony was. Despite our nervousness, David Braneky kept everyone calm and comfortable throughout. He helped make our ceremony perfect and catered to our specific requests. David and a coworker wrote a beautiful planting... Read More ceremony that was perfect for our zoo wedding. The ceremony was personal, unique, and left few dry eyes!

Our officiant was Eve Wenger, and she was so fantastic! Eve was wonderful to work with, and she made our whole experience really great. We loved how personalized our ceremony was! Eve had so many different readings, vows, and all sorts of ideas for us to pick from. We received... Read More many compliments from out guests as to how lovely our ceremony was. We both highly recommend Eve!!

When we were planning our wedding, I had an exact picture of what our ceremony would be like, very heartfelt and also a little silly, something to capture us as a couple and our relationship as a whole. Finding the perfect person to help us create this without charging us an arm... Read More and a leg was the tough part, until we met Eve Wenger at a bridal show! Eve was amazing through the entire planning process; she made sure that our ceremony was exactly what we wanted, no matter how many changes or edits we sent her. Our guests are still talking about our ceremony and how personalized it was and how it beautifully represented us as a couple. I would recommend Eve over and over again to anyone who is in need of an Officiant.

We couldn’t be more pleased that we chose Jim Haley for our June 4 wedding. I am Catholic, but not active in a local church, and my husband is not religious. For this reason Jim’s background (former RC priest) was appealing to us. Jim was kind, professional and extremely easy... Read More to work with. We coordinated via email at first and then Jim offered to meet us for coffee in between our homes. My husband and I were both pretty shy at the thought of public display of affection so we were a little nervous about the ceremony but meeting Jim just put us right at ease. He asked us a series of questions about our relationship and took copious notes. He very quickly turned around a draft ceremony. We went back and forth over email a couple of times with minor updates, we talked through the timeline for the day, and then the next time we saw him was at our ceremony—“easy peasy”! Jim gave us a beautiful, sincere and personalized ceremony which included an Irish handfasting (a nod to my heritage). We received a number of compliments from our guests—men and women—that it was one of the best ceremonies they had ever been to and asking how we knew Jim. The price was extremely reasonable (ironically this service was the most important yet least costly) especially for the value that we received. We would definitely recommend Jim to others and can’t thank him enough for the great work he did for us.

I worked with Kelly Fuddy from the Lancaster PA area. She was absolutely amazing. We met in person first before we booked her because we wanted to make sure we made a connection with her. As soon as we started to talk, I knew I wanted to book her. She was the sweetest woman... Read More ever. We talked about the ceremony and what we wanted. I had some suggestions that Kelly never had done before and she was all for it. I loved how she let us kind of create our own wedding ceremony instead of the typical ones. She was always so nice when planning our ceremony and would always let us have a say in things. She sent our outline of what the ceremony would be like just to make sure it is what we wanted. We wanted our ceremony to be VERY personal and she made it exactly how we wanted it. She said a back story of us and even threw in some jokes throughout which make us and our guests laugh. I even had 1 group of guests come up to me at the reception saying, "I have been to weddings over the past 40 years and your ceremony was by far the best one". The one thing that I loved about Kelly is how professional and personable she was. I felt like she was someone that I could just have coffee with and chit chat with. After the ceremony was over, she gave our coordinator a packet of things which told us the next steps to do (name change, etc). She also printed out everything that she read at the ceremony which I absolutely loved because during the ceremony I was so excited that at times I forgot the ceremony was actually going on haha. I only worked with Kelly from Journeys of the Heart but I am sure everyone else at the company is just as amazing. I could not recommend them enough! She was such an honor to work with.

All I can say is amazing! Bob Pileggi was our officiant. He was so prompt with replying to emails. He allowed us to create a beautiful and personal ceremony from scratch. He was so helpful and guided us along the way. During the ceremony Bob kept everything so organized and we... Read More were to relaxed knowing Bob was taking care of us! If you want a ceremony that is unique and perfect to you as a couple, look no further than Journeys of the Heart. And Bob Pileggi is amazing!! You will not be disappointed!!

We used Journeys of the Heart - specifically Bob for our wedding in Philadelphia. It was such a wonderful experience and I have to say I think it was my favorite part of the planning process. He gave us questions to fill out about each other (not showing the other person of... Read More course) and crafted a wonderful, personal ceremony. He has an extensive amount of resources that help you develop the feel of your ceremony but still make it your own. Our guests really loved it and we have gotten so many compliments. Bob was very quick with his communication and gave us all the direction we needed. I cannot recommend Bob more - he really made our day so very special!

I used Journeys of the Heart for my wedding day and I am so glad I did. Our officiant, Bob Pileggi, was amazing. We met with him one time when we were first looking for an officiant and then kept in touch by e-mail throughout the wedding planning process. Family and friends... Read More asked if we had known Bob for a very long time due to how personal the wedding ceremony was. The ceremony was all about us and I couldn't imagine how it could have been any better. Bob really listened to us and got to know us as a couple and made sure our ceremony showed that.

Bob Pileggi was so easy to work with. After our first meeting, we knew he would create a beautiful ceremony. Bob was responsive, encouraging, thorough and helpful in creating a truly unique, personal ceremony. Many guests commented on how our ceremony really reflected our... Read More relationship and personalities. We are so thankful we had Bob to create our perfect ceremony. We would recommend him to anyone !

Journeys of the Heart was fantastic to work with. I reached out to the company through email and spoke with Angie who got back to me quickly with answers to all of my questions and was very helpful in starting the process of picking an officiant. Angie gave us a list of... Read More officiants with information about all of them and after reading through it all, my husband and I really wanted to meet with Bob Pileggi. We can not say enough good things about Bob! He invited us into his home and got to know us by letting us go on and on about each other. He was so sweet, soft-spoken, nice, and very professional. He helped my husband and I create the perfect ceremony for our family and friends. He was always available to us through email and got back to us in a timely manner. He would send us drafts, vow ideas, readings, and any other information needed to create the ceremony. Bob stayed in contact with us every day for three days up until the wedding. He made sure to send us everything that was going to be said and let us know we can change, remove, and fix anything we wanted. There was not one dry eye during our ceremony! We received so many compliments about Bob and how personal, loving, and beautiful our ceremony was. We can not thank Bob enough for creating the perfect start to our amazing day!

We met Susanne at a wedding sampling at Stroudsmoor Country Inn. Even though We talked to many officiants throughout the day, we felt an immediate connection with Susanne. Since we were planning our PA wedding long distance from SC, we communicated through Skype and email... Read More throughout the next couple months. Susanne helped us create the unique ceremony we were looking for, but still retained some of the traditional Catholic elements we grew up with. Words cannot describe how happy we were with the way our ceremony turned out. Our family and friends are still complimenting us about how our beautiful our ceremony was and how it was "us". We highly recommend Susanne and Journeys of the Heart.

My husband and I chose Jim Haley to officiate at our ceremony and he was amazing! He was very professional, organized and stayed on top of our schedule to create the ceremony and procure our license. But, that was just details... More importantly, he telephoned us and spoke... Read More with us to begin the process of getting to know who we were immediately. Then he met with us at length to truly understand who we were, our histories and families and what kind of ceremony we were interested in as persons raised in two different faiths. He then wrote us the most beautiful ceremony! We were very pleased with it and with Jim. He showed up early, dealt with our marriage license details and performed a lovely ceremony. We received scads of compliments on our officiant and ceremony! With everything we were worried about, Jim was a reassuring presence. I highly recommend him!!!

My husband and I come from different faith backgrounds, so we wanted to find an officiant who could make our ceremony non-religious but still personal and meaningful. Previewing the officiants availabe, I immediately connected with Naila's background as a writer, and we couldn't... Read More have been happier with our choice! Naila was a warm, personable guide as we thought through each step of our ceremony. She provided us with helpful resources that helped us hone in on what we wanted to include/exclude. Planning weddings can be stressful, as anyone can tell you. But, throughout the process, Naila was the calm, collected presence we needed to make sure everything was going to be ok. After some collaboration, our ceremony ended up being exactly what we wanted. Everyone at the wedding loved it, which is sometimes not the most memorable part of a wedding! If I were to do it all over again, I would most certainly go with Naila again! Thank you for helping us put together the most beautiful ceremony we could have imagined!

Our officiant was Susanne Wilson, and she was absolutely phenomenal! We loved our ceremony, and Susanne was so wonderful and easy to work with. We received so many complements on the service. We are not religious and she tailored everything to what we wanted. She had so many... Read More readings, ceremony ideas, vows, all sorts of things to choose to make the wedding really feel like it was personal to you. We loved Susanne and highly recommend her!

Words cannot express how grateful we are to have David Braneky from Journeys of the Heart to be our officiant for our wedding in May 2016. David, you are absolutely amazing! I wish all couples could be as fortunate as we are to have you for this experience! My husband and I are... Read More not very religious, my family are Chinese and his family are Methodist. We want our ceremony to honor both families, be unique, sentimental, but also fun. We emailed and met a few officiants, and none of them felt like the right fit until we found Journeys of the Heart. I talked with Diane over the phone about our situation, and she recommended David. During our first meeting, David talked with us for over an hour to really get to know us, and we got to know his style and were very comfortable with it. A month after we met, David provided us a first draft of the ceremony, and I cannot tell you how much thoughts and efforts he put into it! Not only did he provided many different options to consider for our non-religious ritual and readings, he also researched the traditions of Chinese tea ceremony and the vows in Chinese (even the pronunciations) to incorporate into our wedding! I had some family members came from China who did not speak English, but still felt so involved during the ceremony. Thanks again David and Journeys of the Heart for making this day so special and memorable! Lynn & Jared

We chose Jim Rosengarten as our officiate and would highly recommend him to other couples. Jim was always prompt in responding to e-mails and really took the time to get to know us as a couple before writing our ceremony draft. He was also very receptive to any changes we... Read More wanted to make and sent us a very thoughtful "good luck" e-mail a few days before the wedding. Overall, we had a terrific time working with Jim and were very pleased with how he conducted our ceremony.

I can't say enough wonderful things about Journeys of the Heart and our officiant, Naila Francis. My husband and I met with Naila a few months before our wedding and absolutely loved her energy and spirit. We worked with Naila to create a beautiful ceremony for our wedding... Read More through a few questionnaires and emails. Naila was very flexible and offered great suggestions. In the end, we created a ceremony that spoke so clearly of our partnership and us as a couple. I could not have been happier. So many people complimented us on our lovely ceremony during our wedding - they found it to be very thoughtful, moving, and very personal. Guests said that they really felt like they knew us as a couple and our whole story, which is exactly what I wanted. Further, we got so many compliments about Naila's lovely, calming voice and her entire demeanor. I am so glad we had the opportunity to work with her and I would recommend her to any couple!

If you are looking for an officiant to tell your love story, bring laughter and tears, and be the upmost professional, look no further than Jim Haley!! When we started looking for our officiant, we knew what we wanted, but didn’t have a clue where or how to find him. Luckily we... Read More found Journeys of the Heart online and after reading Jim’s bio, we knew he was the one. After getting to know each other through Facetime and exchanging emails, Jim put together a beautiful, personal ceremony for us and we received so many comments about how beautiful, unique, and perfect it was!! We couldn’t be happier and highly recommend Jim Haley and Journey of the Heart!!

I am not a person who usually writes a review online; however working in the events industry and knowing how hard it can be to find incredible vendors, I had to share my experience. I found out about Journeys of the Heart through a wedding that was being held at my work. I had... Read More the pleasure of working w/ Bob Pileggi during the planning process for my client and he was so lovely and easy to work with that I remembered him when it came time for me to plan my own wedding. I contacted Journeys of the Heart and from the minute I began my conversations with them, I knew it was going to be a great experience. They are extremely responsive and just very easy to communicate with. We only did the minimum package, since we were having a very small and intimate wedding, so we mainly communicated with Bob by phone for our introductory phone call and then via e mail during the rest of the process. Through this communication Bob was able to gather what was really important to us and he created a ceremony that was everything we hoped for. Bob made the entire process easy and enjoyable and it felt like we were working with a friend to finalize all of the small details. Our ceremony felt so personal and everyone told us how special our ceremony was and how they really just enjoyed being a part of it. I honestly couldn't have asked for a better experience and I would highly recommend working with Bob and this company!

We were so pleased with our ceremony last Saturday 11/21 that was officiated by Eve Wenger. Our guests raved about it as well. I am a believer that things happen for a reason and Eve was very accommodating and attentive from our first interaction which was reassuring after the... Read More unfortunate situation with Sam. We really liked that we were able to walk away with a copy of our official ceremony including the vows that we wrote for each other. Thank you again for connecting us with Eve. I would definitely recommend Journeys of the Heart and Eve in particular to others. She helped make our day extra special!