About this vendor
Married By Miller is a Washington, DC-based company offering wedding officiant services to soon-to-be newlyweds. Owner and founder Joanna Miller is a public speaker, writer, singer, and actor and has been marrying couples since 2022. A proud feminist and millennial, she conducts ceremonies for all couples regardless of age, gender, or race. Married By Miller serves within 100 miles of DC.
Joanna is ordained through the American Marriage Ministries and Universal Life Church. She's also a member of the International Association of Professional Wedding Officiants. Joanna grew up in a multi-faith household and lived in Australia for a few years, giving her a unique talent for incorporating her clients' cultural and religious traditions as well as devising new rituals.
Married By Miller is there for you at each step of your wedding planning journey, giving you as much support as possible. Joanna will lead you through the whole process, from ceremony creation and getting your marriage license to writing your beautiful vows. Everything can be done remotely and online to minimize stress. Joanna will craft a bespoke and deeply personal ceremony that matches your style, traditions, and needs. Whether you envision a traditional, romantic, or playful ceremony, she'll bring your vision to life. She can also take care of submitting your license and send you a keepsake certificate and a copy of your ceremony script.
Details
Business Attributes
- Woman-owned Business
Ceremony Types
- Civil Union
- Commitment Ceremony
- Elopement
- Interfaith Ceremony
- Non-Religious Ceremony
- Religious Ceremony
Religious Affiliations
- Buddhist
- Christian
- Protestant
- Interfaith
- Jewish
- Pagan
Wedding Activities
- Wedding
- Ceremony
Awards and Affiliations
2-Time 'Best of Weddings'
2026.2024.
Best of Weddings
The Knot independently assesses vendors for this award—it’s never self-reported. We base it on firsthand experiences from real couples and guests, and they must have a 4.5-star average across 7+ reviews in the qualifying year.
Reviews
Your trust is our goal. Our community relies on honest reviews to help
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5
out of 5.047 reviews
Review photos
Showing slide number 1 out of 9
Joanna at Married By Miller was the officiant for my wedding in May, I could not have been happier with the quality of the services she provided. Joanna was professional, transpare...
nt, and prompt with all her communications and provided a thorough, clear step-by-step process for collaborating on our customized wedding ceremony. She worked with us every step of the way to ensure that our wedding ceremony truly reflected us as individuals and as a couple. Additionally, when there was a difficult family situation that came up a few weeks before the wedding that had the potential to impact our wedding plans, she was extremely compassionate and willing to work with us around potential changes. We ended up being able to proceed as planned, but her empathy, flexibility, and supportiveness meant the world to us. Joanna did an amazing job officiating on our wedding day--multiple attendees (who are used to more traditional, religious wedding ceremonies) commented on how spectacular she was! I would highly recommend Married By Miller, especially if you are looking for a personalized wedding ceremony that tells your love story, your way.
Joanna made our ceremony so special! Everyone was convinced she was our best best friend because she wrote and delivered such a beautiful ceremony. It was beyond our wildest dream...
s and felt so authentically us and magical.
All of our guests were supremely impressed by her and told us how warm the ceremony felt.
She is the ONLY officiant I would recommend in the dmv! And she has excellent communication, professionalism, quick responses, and captured our story beautifully.
I am especially grateful to Joanna for making us feel seen and celebrated as a women loving women couple. It was important for us to find an officiant that could help us have a more untraditional ceremony that is authentic to us and Joanna helped us do just that.
Thank you Joanna!
Fantastic communication, wonderful service. She definitely helped make our day even more special. 10/10 would recommend every time!
We cannot recommend Joanna as an officiant enough - she was an absolute highlight of our wedding! We had countless people come up to us and ask how we knew Joanna because she wrote...
our ceremony as if she had known us for years. Joanna also made the entire process so smooth, from the interview to making edits to the draft, to handling all of the administrative parts. She also put us at ease, as two people who don’t like being the center of attention. We are so happy we worked with Joanna.
Married by Miller is THE BEST!!! Joanna was so lovely to work with leading up to the wedding, and delivered the most beautiful ceremony. During each of our planning meetings, she...
really invested her time and energy into getting to know us and our story. It all paid off as she wrote a very touching and heartfelt ceremony for us. During the delivery itself, she was very personable and flexible, working in witty jokes about motorcycles barreling by our ceremony site and keeping things light there.
One of our most received compliments about our wedding was how personal everything seemed -- how unique the ceremony was. Much of this can be attributed to Joanna's beautiful writing, weaving together all of the different elements we wanted to incorporate into a magical experience that encapsulated our love story and our commitments to each other.
I truly cannot recommend Joanna enough, we are so lucky to have found her!
Joanna went above and beyond to make our ceremony absolutely beautiful.
We knew when we were looking for officiants that this was one of the most important pieces of our day (sin...
ce it was the part where we would actually get married!) and we're so lucky to have found Joanna.
She met with us to talk through our story and put so many special touches into her script to make the whole thing just feel like us. She incorporated the handfasting into our ceremony perfectly and even looked up some Latvian traditions for us to potentially use as well. She also was super understanding and listened to the things we didn't want, not just the things we did, to keep everything perfect.
Then even after the wedding, she worked to get us a new copy of the "fake" wedding certificate, since that hadn't made it's way back to us after the ceremony.
Can't recommend her enough!
I would give Joanna 6 stars if I could. She went above and beyond --spending so much time with us beforehand to learn about our 11-year long love story, filling in some of the gaps...
our venue had left while we were planning, even making sure I ate at our welcome party, and including detailed special touches in writing & officiating our ceremony. She promptly mailed off our paperwork and we got our marriage certificate from Howard County, MD in 10 days! Joanna is personable, thoughtful, and a joy to work with (and also a trooper when my nephew started crying as soon as the ceremony started!)
Joanna officiated at our wedding on October 12 2025. Put simply, Joanna was outstanding. She guided us through the process, drafted a wonderful summary of our relationship for the ...
service, and delivered it with energy and empathy. Throughout the process of preparation, Joanna responded to our questions promptly and provided helpful materials for us to draw upon as we considered how to integrate our family members into the service, and what to include in our vows. Many of our guests remarked on how moving they found the service to be; Joanna deserves much of the credit. Overall, we are just delighted that Joanna served as our officiant.
Joanna was phenomenal to work with! She took the time to really get to know us and craft a ceremony that spoke perfectly to our relationship. Our guests were raving about how beaut...
iful and personal our ceremony was - all thanks to Joanna!
We couldn’t have asked for a better officiant for our wedding. Joanna took the time to understand our relationship and turned our story into a ceremony that felt completely authent...
ic. The ceremony was beautifully delivered, and it was meaningful yet light-hearted. It was perfectly suited to us as a couple. Joanna, thank you for making our day so special and memorable!
Joanna was an absolutely perfect officiant. For any couple looking for a ceremony that feels truly personal and meaningful, we can't recommend her highly enough. She delivered such...
a beautiful ceremony, that was so true to our story as a couple. It was perfectly balanced with humor and sincerity. We had several guests telling us how much they loved the ceremony, and a few who were surprised to learn she was a hired officiant and not a long term friend.
We had the absolute pleasure of working with Joanna as our officiant, and we could not recommend her more highly. From the very beginning, she took the time to carefully explain he...
r services and walk us through the entire process so we always felt prepared and supported. She shared her ceremony script with us well in advance, which gave us so much peace of mind and allowed us to make thoughtful choices together.
Joanna went above and beyond in helping us select meaningful Bible verses that fit perfectly with our story, and she was incredibly open and accommodating to our bilingual wedding. On the day of, her delivery was heartfelt, sincere, and truly moving, she had the entire crowd in tears with her beautiful words.
If you’re looking for someone who is professional, thoughtful, and genuinely gifted at what she does, Joanna is the officiant for you. She made our ceremony unforgettable and we are forever grateful for her role in our special day.
We are so grateful to have had Joanna as our wedding officiant! From the very beginning, she was an absolute joy to work with. She started by taking the time to get to know us thro...
ugh an in-depth interview about our relationship, which allowed her to craft a personalized ceremony. The editing process was quick and collaborative, and together we shaped a ceremony that reflected exactly the tone and story we wanted to share.
Joanna brought the perfect mix of humor, warmth, and sincerity to our ceremony. So many of our guests thought we had known her for years, because she told our story with so much heart. Her presence made the ceremony truly unforgettable.
Joanna was an absolutely wonderful officiant for our wedding! Throughout the process, she was communicative, thoughtful, and a joy to work with. We asked for a non-religious, short...
ceremony, and she tailored it beautifully to reflect our story—striking the perfect balance of genuine sentiment, lightness, and humor. We would wholeheartedly recommend Joanna to anyone looking for an officiant!
We received a ton of great reviews on Joanna’s personalized ceremony! She was a pleasure to work with leading up to the event and handled a major curveball on the wedding day wonde...
rfully. Would highly recommend her services to anyone!
Joanna was amazing, and made the ceremony so personal that many guests were asking if we were old friends. She made the process extremely easy and delivered a beautiful ceremony!
Joanna was everything we wanted in an officiant. Finding an officiant was a daunting task for us, but Joanna managed to tailor a ceremony that was personal to us and still reflecte...
d with our guests. If you want an officiant who truly gets to know you, use Joanna. She is kind, and her ceremony script will feel like a close friend wrote it.
Choosing Joanna was one of the best decisions we made for our wedding. The officiant really sets the tone of the whole ceremony so it is important to pick the best one for you - an...
d we certainly did! We are a modern, feminist, non-religious couple and were thrilled to find someone who was excited to officiate a ceremony that was totally unique and reflected our values. Joanna was patient, kind, communicative, and helpful throughout the entire process of crafting our wedding ceremony flow and script. In our love story interview, she had a lot of great, thoughtful questions that inspired the best content for our script and really made it unique and personal. She even went above and beyond and helped us edit our vows. On our wedding day, Joanna was a positive and calming presence with a warm, comfortable delivery that made our ceremony feel joyful and smooth. She really knows how to ad-lib well in the in between moments to keep away the awkward pauses. She also remembers to step out of the way for your first kiss photos which is so important! And her excellent work didn't end there. She sent our marriage certificate in in a very timely manner, left us a beautiful unofficial one that same evening that we could frame, and also left us a copy of the ceremony script on thick cardstock so we could keep it forever. Finally, she wrote us an incredibly sweet card congratulating us on our marriage. Truly so thoughtful! I can't say enough good things about Joanna - her kindness, her helpfulness, and her performance on the day speak for itself. I highly recommend her!
My husband and I got married this past September. We had been struggling to find an officiant that felt right for us until we found Joanna. Upon our first video call with Joanna we...
could tell that she was perfect for us as we could tell she was very excited and passionate about her work. In order to personalize our ceremony script, Joanna sent us a couples questionnaire in which we could each choose questions to answer, and from there she incorporated those answers into the script. Once the script was written, she sent it to us to proof read and make any changes we wanted. Joanna is very professional, great with communication, and showed genuine interest in our love story. On the day of the wedding Joanna showed up on time, ready to go and put on an amazing ceremony. During the reception we had many family members approach us with compliments to Joanna with many of them genuinely thinking she was a friend of ours given how personalized the ceremony was to us. We even had a few mention that it was the best ceremony they have been too. Many enjoyed her enthusiasm and how well spoken she was. We are very happy with our decision to hire her for our wedding and definitely recommend her 10/10!
We couldn't have asked for a better wedding officiant! From our first meeting to the ceremony itself, Joanna was warm, thoughtful, and incredibly professional. She took the time to...
get to know us as a couple and crafted a ceremony that was personal, meaningful, and beautiful. Our guests were impressed, and we couldn't be more grateful for the special touch they added to our day.
Joanna was amazing! We loved working with her and had multiple guests tell us it was the best wedding ceremony they had been to.
We are so glad we hired Joanna to be our officiant for our September 14, 2024 wedding! We received so many compliments on our ceremony and that's largely due to Joanna's ability to...
capture our love story and truly have it at the heart of our ceremony - I don't think there was a dry eye in the house! Joanna met with us a couple of times and was very receptive to our feedback and ideas surrounding the ceremony. She also took care of sending of signing and sending our marriage license back to the court, which was so nice to not have another thing to worry about! Hire Joanna to officiate your ceremony - you won't regret it!
Joanna is incredible!! She was very accommodating to our needs- she heard us and was very professional about it all. She even arrived early! We would 100% recommend her for couples...
looking to elope or have an officiator at their wedding. Thank you Joanna!
We found Joanna through our wedding planner and what a great recommendation she was. We didn’t really have a “vision” for the ceremony and didn’t have any particular family or cult...
ural traditions to help determine the structure or order of things. Joanna explained her process, spent some time getting to know us, and provided some resources that were all truly helpful in coming up with a ceremony that was meaningful and fitting for us. Throughout the process she was thoughtful and responsive. During the weeding, Joanna’s was wonderful. Multiple guests commented on how warm and genuine her delivery was. And last, but not least, she was super helpful and efficient with the marriage license.
We are so thrilled with our experience with Joanna! She was able to create and share a ceremony that felt extremely personal to us, and also conveyed the importance of the occasion...
. We loved getting to share our love story with her. She was extremely professional along every step of the way; she was always prepared and handled logistics we did not even know to anticipate. I would recommend her highly to any couple!
Joanna was fantastic to work with! We reached out just a few months before our wedding date and she was flexible in supporting exactly what we needed for our ceremony. She is thoro...
ugh, responsive and takes great care with the legal documentation required for marriage (texted us a tracking number right after sending the license to the courthouse). On top of it all she is just a lovely person! I couldn't recommend her enough.
We loved Joanna! My husband and I planned our wedding in a month, and Joanna came recommended by another vendor, we are so glad she did! She crafted our ceremony perfectly and cate...
red to us, and we appreciated that it was a non secular wedding (not too many of those in VA). I'd absolutely recommend her for your wedding.
Joanna officiated our May wedding in Virginia. From the first conversation we felt comfortable with her and her approach to the ceremony. She worked with us to personalize it and m...
ake sure that it was both special and unique to our relationship. Joanna took care to ensure the things that were important to us were represented in the ceremony and even allowed us to make any edits on the final script for the ceremony. We would absolutely recommend Joanna to any couples looking to make their wedding day more special and memorable.
Working with Joanna was great and she was an amazing officiant. From the first call she was responsive, attentive, and engaged. She helped put together a wonderful, personalized ce...
remony that matched our personalities and religious beliefs. She was punctual and matched the energy of the wedding and guests perfectly. I would recommend Joanna to anyone needing a wedding officiant!
Joanna was great! We loved how customizable the ceremony script was and appreciate how easy it was to work with her to build our perfect ceremony.
Joanna was our officiant for our March Wedding. From the get-go she was super communicative. We selected our package and she wrote us up a ceremony very quickly that was tailored t...
o us. She picked out a poem based on our conversation and it was perfect. We only made a couple small tweaks and then Joanna handled all the paperwork. We had a timing issue during the ceremony due to another vendor situation, but Joanna reorganized the ceremony on the spot to make the timing accommodation, and none of the guests knew stuff was out of the original planned order. If you don't want to worry about your ceremony, Joanna will take care of it until you're happy with it! Thank you so much, we loved working with you.
Every step of the way, Joanna was there. She greatly assisted with any questions we had, was punctual arriving at the ceremony and never hesitated to offer her guidance or support ...
throughout the entire process. We even had a mix up with the filing of the marriage certificate due to USPS failures. She went above and beyond to correct the issue, was on top of everything with the courts, and provided timely updates to us. She game-planned everything and took time out of her day to drive to the courts and hand delivered the paperwork to them. Joanna was an amazing officiant and had a customized ceremony that was the perfect mix of funny and intimate. She talked with us beforehand and had everything written out in advance.
My husband and I highly recommend hiring Joanna to officiate your wedding. Even with just a month before our wedding date she was able to craft us a beautiful ceremony that was per...
sonal and thoughtful. She had no problem accommodating last minute requests and really took the time to get to know us as a couple. She really helped make our wedding special and we wholeheartedly recommend her to anyone seeking a wedding officiant who goes above and beyond to create a truly magical experience.
Joanna officiated my wedding in October and did an exceptional job. Her process was smooth and produced amazing vows. I couldn’t have picked a better officiant for our wedding!
I highly recommend working with Joanna as your wedding officiant. She is so easy to work with, and it's obvious she truly enjoys what she does. My now husband and I, found it so ea...
sy to work with her. We decided to opt for the custom ceremony and were overjoyed with the beautifully written ceremony Joanna prepared for us. Book her!!!
Joanna helped us craft the perfect ceremony for us. Coming from multicultural, secular backgrounds with religious families, we initially struggled to figure out the best ceremony s...
tructure that would capture our essence and still incorporate our cultural backgrounds. My fiance and I worked very closely with Joanna to craft the perfect ceremony. Our guests loved the ceremony too and mention that it was the best part of the entire wedding. Thank you Joanna for helping make our wedding a success! Cannot recommend you enough.
Miller helped make sure our ceremony went on without a hitch. We were able to personalize pretty much any component we desired.
We could not have been more pleased with the quality of Joanna's service at our secular wedding! In every aspect of the process, from the interview to the drafting of the ceremony ...
text to the execution of the event, we felt respected and valued as collaborators. She even helped us come up with a unique unity ceremony that incorporated a mutual interest in the wedding! So many of our guests told us all throughout the night how excellent the ceremony was. We highly recommend her, especially if you're looking for someone to work with you to create a custom ceremony!
Joanna officiated our wedding on October 7th, 2023 and I could not say enough good things about her! From the beginning, she replied quickly and was always willing to answer questi...
ons. She even answered my first email when she was on vacation! Joanna crafted a beautiful ceremony for my wife and I and let us read through and make any changes we wanted. She made sure to take a thorough history of our relationship and met with us over zoom before starting her process. We asked for a non-religious, sweet ceremony with a dash of humor and she exceeded our expectations! Joanna speaks very eloquently, she is clearly a very talented public speaker and writer. She was professional throughout our entire planning process and continues to be of guidance even after our wedding. She took care of all of the paperwork afterwards, and gave us instructions on how to obtain our marriage license before the ceremony took place. Joanna is the sweetest, we would 1000% recommend her to anyone looking for an outstanding officiant for their special day!
Married by Miller set the tone for our wedding with the most incredible, personal, custom ceremony that took into account the traditions that mattered to us and left out everything...
else. It so far surpassed any of our expectations, and made our guests laugh and cry. She is clearly deeply passionate about her work, and is incredibly knowledgeable and prepared, asking thoughtful questions throughout the process and providing indispensable wisdom and advice. We felt so at ease working with her at every step of the way.
Joanna was so helpful and supportive. My fiancé and I got eloped near the Shenandoah mountains. Joanna surprised us with a cake she made, a bottle of champagne, and a personalized ...
card. She also helped us take our wedding photos which came out great. We couldn’t have asked for anyone better to officiate our wedding. Would 100% recommend Married By Miller.
Joanna was amazing! Her ability to put a quick ceremony together in a short term notice impressed us and she made the celebration feel so intimate and connected both of our culture...
s. We are so happy with the results and the ceremony was just perfect! Additionally, she made it very smooth and clear the process for the marriage license/certificate.
Joanna listened to our vision for the ceremony we wanted and was attentive to the smallest details of our wedding. She brought our dreams for the big day to life. Joanna did an es...
pecially great job with the reading we selected and spoke eloquently even though she was clearly emotional. We are so happy that she was part of our wedding.
Joanna is a very special celebrant and is perfect for anyone who, like us, wanted to do our wedding "our way". We had a non-religious ceremony but wanted to make it very personal t...
o our interest and styles and the fact that our families do care about religion, which she completely understood and accommodated for. Joanna is organized, professional, and empathetic in the extreme. I'd strongly recommend her to anyone who wants a unique and personal wedding experience!
I had the pleasure of working with Joanna as my wedding officiant, and I could not be happier. Despite the ceremony being short and simple (just like we wanted!), Joanna added a be...
autiful touch by including a poem in Spanish that was so meaningful to me and my partner, and helped his family feel included and welcome. It really made our ceremony feel truly personalized and unique.
Throughout the planning process, Joanna was attentive, responsive and easy to work with. She provided us with suggestions and guidance that helped make our ceremony exactly what we wanted it to be. Her calm and reassuring demeanor was especially appreciated on the day of the wedding, which helped to alleviate any pre-ceremony nerves.
Overall, Joanna exceeded our expectations in every way possible. She was warm, professional, and made our ceremony unforgettable. I would highly recommend Joanna to anyone looking for a wedding officiant who can add that special touch to their ceremony.
Joanna conducted my wedding ceremony and from the moment we met, I knew my husband and I were in good hands.
Joanna was incredibly professional and well-prepared. She arrived early...
to the venue and was dressed impeccably in formal attire for our black tie event. She made a point to introduce herself to us, our families and vendors, and took the time to ensure that we were comfortable with the ceremony proceedings. She was even okay when we asked her to include my husband’s family priest at the last minute! Her attention to detail and organization made the ceremony run smoothly and on schedule, which was a relief given the size of our wedding with 300 guests.
During the ceremony, Joanna's speaking skills were impeccable. She struck the perfect balance between solemnity and warmth, creating a beautiful atmosphere that was both celebratory and reverent – plus she made everyone laugh! She incorporated personal anecdotes and sentiments into the ceremony while telling our story, making it feel heartfelt and personal. Her ability to connect with us and our guests on a personal level was truly impressive.
Joanna's contribution to our special day was immeasurable. She helped us create a ceremony that was both meaningful and memorable, and her professionalism and warmth were a calming presence amidst the excitement and nerves. I cannot recommend her services highly enough and I am grateful for the impact she had on our wedding day.
From the moment I met Joanna, I could sense her compassion and empathy. She was attentive to my family’s needs and listened intently to our wishes for the funeral service for my fa...
ther. Throughout the planning process, she was always available to answer our questions and provided helpful suggestions to make the service meaningful and personalized.
On the day of the funeral, Joanna was a calming presence amidst the grief and sorrow. She led the service with grace and poise, honoring my father's life and legacy in a way that truly captured his spirit. Her words were heartfelt and authentic, and she conveyed a sense of hope and comfort that we all desperately needed in that moment.
What impressed me most about Joanna was her ability to connect with our family and friends on a personal level. She took the time to speak with each of us individually, offering words of support and encouragement. Her kindness and sincerity were evident in every interaction, and it was clear that she genuinely cared about our well-being.
In the end, Joanna's contribution to my father's funeral was immeasurable. She helped us navigate a difficult time with compassion, wisdom, and grace. I cannot recommend her services highly enough, and I am grateful for the positive impact she had on our family during this difficult time.
Contact
DC, MD, VA, WV and DE
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