Lansdowne Officiants + Premarital Counseling

Marriages by Mary Rita

Wedding Officiant

Philadelphia and all its suburbs.

Travel area: Within 50 miles See details

4.9

Verified reviews from real couples

Mary Rita officiated our wedding and our experience with her was excellent! From the start, she was very responsive and helpful. We had multiple calls/Zoom meetings to go over the ceremony script. She was also extremely accommodating to customizations we wanted for our ceremony, making it perfect and unique to us. On the day, she arrived early and did an excellent job. We could not have asked for a better officiant!

Athena F.

5.0

Mary Rita was a wonderful officiant! She was very available for any of our questions, not to mention kind and sweet. She sent over a copy of our ceremony beforehand, and had even included personal touches about our cats in the ceremony! We highly recommend her to anyone looking for a great officiant!

Ariel K.

5.0

Mary Rita Merlino

OWNER

Typically responds within 24h

AWARD WINNER

Thanks to recommendations from couples on The Knot

Marriages by Mary Rita is a wedding officiant service operating out of Philadelphia, PA. Covering weddings throughout the Philadelphia and all its suburbs, as well as Lehigh County and the Pocono Mountains. This business has everything you need to say "I do" in a heartfelt way. Mary Rita is a certified celebrant who began officiating weddings in 2019. In addition to her career as a private chef, she discovered her passion for the wedding industry while working as an event assistant. This newfound interest inspired her to obtain an officiant license and forge a new path as a wedding celebrant. Today, Mary Rita loves working with couples to deliver professional and personal services. Several officiant services are available at Marriages by Mary Rita. Before you walk down the aisle, you can chat with Mary Rita to find the perfect option for your wedding. Three wedding scripts are available, including spiritual, semi-religious, and non-denominational. The spiritual script will include emotional details about you and your partner, as well as a special marriage poem. If you want to incorporate your faith into the service, the semi-religious option allows you to include readings and prayers. For a ceremony that is short and sweet, the non-denominational wedding script covers all the essentials to make your union official. However, all three scripts can be customized to define the most special day in your life.

Woman-owned Business

7+ years in business

Speaks English

Just me

Details

Ceremony Types

Civil Union

Commitment Ceremony

Elopement

Interfaith Ceremony

Non-Religious Ceremony

Religious Ceremony

Second Wedding

Vow Renewal Ceremony

Religious Affiliations

Christian

Catholic

Protestant

Interfaith

Jewish

Muslim

Spiritual

Wedding Activities

Wedding

Ceremony

Awards and Affiliations

2026 'Best of Weddings'

Join couples who chose award-winning vendors for their wedding

Meet the team

Mary Rita Merlino

Owner

I made the decision to become a wedding officiant a couple of years ago and it was the best decision I could have made since I absolutely love that I can bring two people together in marriage. Meeting new couples and playing such an important role in their lives brings great joy for me. I want to make your wedding day as memorable and happy as I possibly can. I would be honored to create a meaningful and special wedding ceremony that you will cherish always.

4.9

out of 5.0

20 reviews

Your trust is our goal. Our community relies on honest reviews to help you make those big decisions with ease.

Review Summary

This AI-generated summary is a snapshot of this vendor's ratings and feedback.

Mary Rita is a professional, responsive officiant who crafts personalized non-religious or semi-religious ceremonies. She offers multiple scripts, helpful Zoom meetings, coordinates with vendors, and handles paperwork promptly. On the day she’s punctual, flexible, calming, and highly recommended.

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Athena F

7/06/2026

Mary Rita officiated our wedding and our experience with her was excellent! From the start, she was very responsive and helpful. We had multiple calls/Zoom meetings to go over the ...

ceremony script. She was also extremely accommodating to customizations we wanted for our ceremony, making it perfect and unique to us. On the day, she arrived early and did an excellent job. We could not have asked for a better officiant!

Ariel K

6/17/2026

Mary Rita was a wonderful officiant! She was very available for any of our questions, not to mention kind and sweet. She sent over a copy of our ceremony beforehand, and had even i...

ncluded personal touches about our cats in the ceremony! We highly recommend her to anyone looking for a great officiant!

Any questions?

Kathryn S

6/14/2026

Mary Rita was a great officiant for our non-religious ceremony! She took time to ask questions to really understand what we wanted. She also sent over the script before the wedding...

and allowed changes to be made. Mary Rita worked with our other vendors on the wedding day to ensure everything went smoothly. She also mailed the signed marriage license to the court the Monday after our ceremony so we didn't have to wait long for the certified copy. Mary Rita answered all my questions along the way and explained the process in an easy to understand way!

Debbie R

5/17/2026

Professional and a gem to work with❤️Highly Recommend

Holly H

4/07/2026

Mary Rita was the perfect officiant for our Wedding. We loved that she provided multiple scripts for us to choose from, but what made it even more special was how she personalized ...

the script that we chose. She had each of us fill out a questionnaire about one another so she could really understand us and our love for one another which she incorporated on our big day. 10/10!

alexis p

10/30/2025

Mary Rita officiated my wedding a couple weeks ago. We had a few phone calls beforehand to go over stuff. She was nice, but to the point. I was fine with that. But when I told her ...

what my venue was, the first thing she said was "Oh I don't like one of their coordinators." I thought that was kinda rude and unnecessary. When she arrived to the venue on my wedding day, she didn't introduce herself or shake our hands, she said "Where is Sam?!" (my coordinators name). After the ceremony, she didn't say bye, no hugs, handshakes etc, she just left. All in all, she did show up on time, and got the job done and married us. But it definitely wasn't the experience I thought it was going to be based on her positive reviews. Disappointed to say the least!

Kasturi S

10/28/2025

Mary Rita was an absolute joy to work with and truly made our ceremony unforgettable. From the very beginning, she took the time to get to know us, understand our story, and craft ...

a ceremony that felt deeply personal and meaningful. Her words were heartfelt, eloquent, and perfectly reflected who we are as a couple. She brought such warmth, grace, and calm to the day — even helping ease our nerves before the ceremony began. We’re so grateful to Mary Rita for creating such a special moment for us. She was the heart of our day, and we can’t recommend her highly enough!

Ian B

9/25/2025

Mary Rita was an excellent choice as an officiant for our wedding. She was very thorough, communicative, and easy to talk to. She had plenty good ideas when drafting our vows. High...

ly recommend.

Rachel N

8/13/2025

Mary Rita was an absolute pleasure to work with from start to finish. She made the entire process feel effortless and personal. When she shared her script of vows, I knew immediate...

ly they were perfect—the words felt as though they came straight from my own heart. Her warmth, professionalism, and genuine care made our ceremony incredibly special, and I’m so grateful she was part of our wedding day. Highly recommend!

Liza R

7/30/2025

Mary Rita was fantastic and absolutely awesome. We knew immediately from our first meeting with her she'd be perfect for our wedding. She was very insightful, knowledgeable, and of...

fered great advice. If you want a smooth wedding, we'd highly recommend her. :)

Maddison S

7/29/2025

Mary Rita was wonderful! She walked us through the whole process and collected information from each of us to incorporate into our customized script. She was great to work with and...

convenient to meet with over zoom. The day of she arrived early and got paperwork out of the way so we could enjoy our day fully. I can't recommend her enough!

Carlos R

5/20/2025

Mary Rita was absolutely great to work with. After our first meeting with her, we knew she'd be our officiant. Overall, it was a very smooth process, and she explained everything v...

ery well. She goes through the scripts with you in a timely manner and also comes well prepared. I would highly recommend her services.

Morgan M

10/01/2024

Mary Rita was amazing! She was a pleasure to work with and made the whole process nice and smooth! We couldn’t have asked for anyone better!

Devon G

7/07/2024

We are so happy that we hired Mary Rita to officiate our wedding! She put together a great script with a personal twist and the ceremony was the perfect length. We got so many comp...

liments from our guests about her officiating. We had several zoom calls before the wedding to review the script, ask questions, and to explain the process of getting our marriage license. The whole time, Mary Rita was kind and quick to respond. She made the whole process really easy!

Millie H

6/22/2024

Mary Rita officiated our elopement ceremony in May 2024. She responds quickly to questions and was very accommodating. We had planned to get married outdoors and it rained so we ha...

d to improvised (which we had planned for). She was very flexible, even on a rainy day. My only recommendation to Mary Rita would be to start using adobe eSign to execute agreements as it's a quicker and easier way to sign a contract. Other than this she was great to work with.

Toree S

5/03/2024

My new husband and I had the pleasure of working with Mary Rita as our officiant. The entire process was seamless from start to finish. We first made our introduction with a phon...

e call, where we were able to ask all and any questions we had. She explained everything to us about the whole process and answered our questions. About a month out from our wedding, we met with her via zoom. She went over necessary details, and answered more questions that we came up with. My husband and I are not religious and one of our concerns was that we were not going to be able to find a wedding script that was religion-free. Mary Rita offers different scripts to match exactly what you're looking for. We opted for the non-religious civil ceremony and she customized it perfectly to fit us and our needs. The entire time, from the first phone call, to the actual ceremony, Mary Rita was nothing but incredibly professional, kind, and accommodating. Not to mention, she answered my billions of questions, hah! If you're on the fence about hiring her, this is your sign to get that first meeting and you will see what me and all the other reviewers here are talking about.

Michael Y

5/01/2024

My wife and I worked with Mary Rita for our recent wedding and really enjoyed working with her! She was incredibly professional, responsive, and honestly made our lives a lot easie...

r by answering all our questions and guiding us through the process. She did a great job tailoring the ceremony to our specific relationship and was really respectful and great to work with. Would highly recommend working with her!

Amanda M

10/10/2023

Mary Rita was amazing to work with for our wedding day. We ended up going with the semi-religious option for my now husband and she worked with all of my tweaks. She was very promp...

t to emails/text messages. She explained everything about the marriage license process. Funny thing, I totally forgot about it on the wedding day. Luckily, Mary Rita was so prompt on the wedding day that I had time to have someone run to pick it up for me. Her ceremony she delivered us was beautiful. She also laughed with us when my husband was looking at her sheet to know what to say/was coming next. We cannot thank you enough for all of your hard work and making our ceremony magical!

Christina S

1/27/2023

Mary Rita was a pleasure to work with for our commitment ceremony. She was readily available for virtual meetings and took a genuine interest in getting to know us as a couple. Mar...

y Rita was immediately responsive to all email correspondence and didn't miss a beat when we needed some last minute changes to the script. The day of the ceremony she was prompt and professional, warm and kind. Highly recommend!

Rachael W

6/20/2022

Mary Rita was the best to work with! My husband and I loved chatting with her before the ceremony during the planning process. We felt so comfortable having her lead our ceremony. ...

We only received compliments from our guests on how beautiful the ceremony was. She was extremely easy and flexible, especially when I brought the wrong paperwork for her to sign off on. I am so happy that we had Mary Rita part of our day!

Service area & Contact info

Travel area: Within 50 miles

Additional charges may apply

(610) 585-2427

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Marriages by Mary Rita

Mary Rita Merlino

Owner

Typically responds within 24h

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Marriages by Mary Rita

About this vendor

Review Summary

Service area & Contact info

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