Some might overlook the importance of your wedding officiant, but an eloquent orator can totally change the energy of your ceremony. The officiant must be center stage, and yet they must be able to draw the attention of your guests to you and your partner on your big day. A good officiant will take the time to truly get to know each and every couple and will be able to convey your story to the guests, so that they understand why you are making this commitment. This list can help you find officiants of a wide variety of spiritualities or beliefs, both secular and denominational. Why is this list free to read?
The Full List of Best Wedding Officiants in SF
Engle Heart
Engle Heart is a spiritual services company run by interfaith minister Rev. Mary Rose Engle. As an interfaith minister, Rev. Engle promotes understanding and respect while providing spiritual guidance to her clients. Rev. Engle works primarily as a hospital chaplain and wedding officiant in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angles South Bay and the New York Tri-State Area, along with other areas of her clients' choosing. Engle Heart offers spiritual care counseling that treats a person's soul along with their mind and body by accessing their belief systems in a higher power. As an officiant, Rev. Engle takes the time to get to know her clients for weddings, baby-naming ceremonies and more, to tailor these events and make them truly memorable for all involved.
California Officiants
California Officiants, also known as Cali Officiants, is a wedding ceremony services provider offering officiant and related services throughout the state of California. They perform both full wedding and elopement ceremonies. Their team helps religious, non-religious, opposite sex and same-sex couples plan a ceremony and craft vows. They also provide wedding planning guidance and lists of connections throughout the state to other parties who can help a couple design their big day, including a variety of vendors and venues. Even with elopements, the officiants provide couples with custom guidance designed to help them make a wonderful ceremony and lasting memories. In addition to wedding planning and officiating, the team at California Officiants offers bundled wedding package deals. These packages include photography and many other wedding-related services.
Heartfelt Weddings
Heartfelt Weddings provides a wide range of celebratory and officiant wedding services in the San Francisco Bay and Wine Country areas. Kathy and Larry Wilkerson are non-denominational ordained ministers and wedding officiants. They bring to their clients their experience from performing more than 3,000 weddings. They respect and serve people of all backgrounds and faiths, including religious, non-religious and LGBTQ. They attempt to help a couple craft a ceremony and vows that match the couple's dreams, personal tastes and values. They include with their services past wedding ceremony samples and inspirational and love poems and readings to help a couple with planning their ceremony. After the ceremony, they supply the couple with a bound copy of the ceremony as a keepsake of their special day.
Nilou Weddings
Nilou Weddings is a total wedding planning and design specialty firm located in San Francisco. Certified Event Planner and Officiant Nilou helps couples create a wedding filled with bright, lasting memories. She offers both partial and full planning services, as dictated by the needs of her clients. Her specialties include Persian and Iranian weddings and Fusion and Mixed ceremonies. She and her team of professional wedding planners assist in a wide range of areas, including event design and logistics, wedding budget, venue booking, invitations and programs, wedding website, florist and rentals, catering, cake and desserts, music and entertainment, audio-visual, decor and lighting, photography and videography, officiant and staffing solutions. They also help a couple with gown and attire decisions, make-up and hair, bridal shower and rehearsal plans and transportation. Lastly, they provide honeymoon design and planning.
Lead Your Love Life
Sarah Oswald with Lead Your Love Life offers a wide range of wedding and relationship-related therapy services in the San Francisco Bay Area and Nevada City. She is an ordained Universal Life Church minister and a certified Relational Life Therapist. She also holds a Masters degree in Resilient Leadership from Naropa University. As a wedding officiant, Sarah offer premarital couple's therapy and coaching services. She works with couples to customize their ceremony to match their unique personal tastes. She assists with vow writing and community engagement as well. She'll also help couples design how they plan to tell their story to others and surprise their guests. At the community level, Sarah helps groups of any size, including teams, find better ways to communicate and work together.
Bay Area Ceremonies
Bay Area Ceremonies offers wedding personalization and ceremony services by Officiant Dr. Richard A. Kaplowitz, including services for civil, spiritual, multicultural, interfaith, non-denominational, LGBT, short-notice, surprise and second/third weddings. Known as Rick to his clients, Dr. Kaplowitz also presides over handfasting, renewal of vows and non-marriage commitment ceremonies. One of his specialties is destination weddings. At a wedding, he can also officiate during rituals that involve chocolates, sand, wine or a unity candle. In addition to weddings and relationship celebrations, he performs officiant services at baby welcoming and naming and memorial and funeral events. Rick has extensive experience officiating at a wide variety of venues, including places of worship, beaches, parks, homes and backyards. Outside of the Bay Area, he also officiates at ceremonies in Northern California.
Officially Hitched
Officially Hitched is a wedding officiant and planning provider located in the San Francisco area. They supply a variety of wedding ceremony services to couples who need help crafting the ceremony of their dreams. Depending on the wedding package, the team at Officially Hitched provides guidance, vow writing, story creation and officiating services. They also offer officiant coaching services to anyone officiating a ceremony who lacks prior experience. Their initial consultation is free. Subsequent consultation and package prices are clearly outlined on the business website. In addition to wedding services, they provide several coaching-related services for couples, individuals, groups and businesses. For couples, they have pre-engagement and pre-marital counseling. Their other coaching services include spiritual and faith, goal setting and achievement, career and vocation and general life coaching sessions. These services include one free discovery session.
Lissin Lev Chaya
Lissin Lev Chaya is a life cycle celebrant and officiant who provides services to couples in the San Francisco Bay, San Mateo Coast and Pacifica areas. Her educational background includes a Celebrant certification by the Celebrant Foundation and Institute and a Vibrational Healer certification from the Joy Gardner Vibrational Healing Program. In addition, she has been trained in Jewish Wedding Intensive by Jewish Milestones and holds a Reiki mastery in the Usui Tradition. Lissin also brings more than 30 years of experience in classical singing to her work. As a result, she does more than officiate at weddings and provide guidance and custom vow writing services. She also sings and creates spontaneous, unique music compositions. Additionally, she offers various pre-ceremony services, including anointing blessing rituals, oracle readings and earth-friendly wedding planning. She also provides private non-wedding sessions and group workshops.
Vow Muse
Since 2010, Vow Muse has supplied wedding ceremony and vow creation services to residents and visitors in San Francisco. Their services include full-length ceremony script, alternate readings, custom rituals and vows. They also offer speech writing services, including speech assistance for the Made of Honor and the Best Man and blessing assistance for parents. They even have Disney-themed speech and thank you toasting services. The muses of Vow Muse, Alicia Ostarello and Angie Sommer, work with each couple in a collaborative fashion to create unique ceremonies, vows and speeches that reflect the dreams, values and personalities of the bride, groom and those who hold a special place at their sides on the big day. Through their website, they also provide free guides designed to help people with various forms of wedding-related writings.
Reverend Timothy Mills
Reverend Timothy Mills uses his more than 30 years of experience as an ordained minister to provide officiant and wedding services throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and Northern California. Reverend Timothy assists couple by guiding them through the process of creating the perfect ceremony to match their style and personal tastes. Having performed more than 3,000 weddings over the course of his mission, Reverend Timothy has the knowledge to provide couples with the information they need to navigate having a wedding in the area, including finding the right vendors and picking out the best venue. Additionally, he offers more than Christian religious ceremonies. He is fluent in Hebrew and has performed Jewish ceremonies. He has also performed Indian and Persian ceremonies and entirely non-religious ones as well.
Ceremonies for the Soul
Ceremonies for the Soul is a full-service wedding ceremony and planning provider in the San Francisco area. Officiant Robyn Greene guides a couple through every aspect of their ceremony based on their dreams, needs and tastes. She brings many years of knowledge and experience as a former Marriage and Family Therapist to her work. Although Robyn's preferred focus is small, boutique weddings, she does provide services to couples for weddings of any size. She also performs ceremonies for couples who have decided to elope rather than have any sort of gathering of family and friends. Ceremonies for the Soul also offers celebrant services that include a ritual ceremony to celebrate the marriage. With this service, Robyn supplies a keepsake copy of the ceremony to the couple.
Forever Inspired
Forever Inspired offers wedding officiant and ceremony services. In addition to performing the ceremony, Wedding Officiant and Ordained Spiritual Minister Mitch Darnell provides a couple with guidance so that they can more easily locate and arrange all of the wedding services they need. Reverend Mitch performs destination weddings all over California, including San Francisco, Sacramento, Lake Tahoe, Northern California, and offers LGTBQ, Gay and Lesbian friendly wedding services. He officiates over mixed gender, mixed religious and non-religious ceremonies. He also officiates at any venue, including theme wedding events based on popular films and television shows. Beyond the exchange of rings and vows, Reverend Mitch officiates unity candle, rose, wine, water/sand, breaking bread, Celtic oath, Irish bells, salt, garland/lei, broom jumping, lasso and circling ceremonies. He customizes the ceremony based on a couple's beliefs and personal tastes.
Golden Gate Weddings
Golden Gate Weddings provides a wide range of wedding officiant, ceremony and destination wedding services throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. Reverend Don Narin and his team help a couple plan their special day and customize their wedding. Reverend Don believes that if a couple wants a true destination wedding, then they shouldn't have to do any of the work required to plan or arrange it. He custom designs the event based on a couple's requests and then performs all of the tasks needed to set it up, including handle venue reservation and permits, signing and filing of marriage certificate, ceremony photography, floral arrangements, music, witnesses and the ceremony. He also provides free sample vows and assists with writing vow to help a couple choose the right words to express their love.
Rabbi Jerry Levy
Rabbi Jerry Levy of San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Services provides rabbinic services to modern Jews related to life cycle ceremonies, including weddings, bar mitzvahs, baby naming, memorials and funerals, unveiling and Shabbat. He emphasizes helping people find creativity, freedom and inspiration in Judaism. He also helps his clients to better understand how their ability to develop profound relationships is "love realized" and the basis for acts of commitment and compassion. Rabbi Jerry guides each person who comes to him over the course of the planning for their event. He uses sources of Jewish wisdom when providing his services with a goal of enriching the lives of each person he assists. For weddings, he offers planning guidance and recommendations. He can also officiate a wedding ceremony.
White Robed Monks of St. Benedict
The White Robed Monks of St. Benedict, publicly represented by the Benedictine Network, are composed of people living actively and unrestricted in their chosen walk of life, marital status, and religious traditions. They believe in a blend of Zen practice with the original teachings of Jesus, beginning with the basic rule of St. Benedict: “Listen!” The order of the White Robed Monks of St. Benedict is considered monastic in that it emphasis the concept of “monos,” meaning “one” in Greek. They focus on mindfulness as a process ultimately enabling each individual to realize his or her unique wholeness/holiness. Unity grows from shared compassion. Performing sacraments and providing educational materials, they maintain deaneries throughout the United States.
Ceremonies by Cynthia
Ceremonies by Cynthia provides wedding officiant and ceremony services in the City of San Francisco. Officiant Cynthia Gregory has performed ceremonies for more than 4,000 couples during the 30-year span of her career. She has married people from all walks of life. She officiates formal and casual religious, Christian, non-Christian, spiritual, civil, traditional, non-traditional and customized weddings. After a free initial consultation, Cynthia offers priced wedding ceremony and rehearsal services. She also provides consultative guidance to couples to help them craft the wedding of their dreams based on their personal tastes and values, including discussing with them their vows, advice about select readings and her favorite area vendors. Cynthia also performs services related to commitment ceremonies, baby blessings, house blessings, celebrations of life, memorial ceremonies and transformative rituals.
WHY THIS LIST IS FREE TO USE
The service providers listed above are those that SFist feels are extremely skilled and provide exceptional services. The term "best" in the above article about the "Best Wedding Officiants in SF" is purely subjective opinion, and it does not necessarily represent user reviews, nor is it a declaration of fact. They are, in some circumstances, the largest firms in their industry in their respective region. In certain situations, variable listing or sponsorship fees affect the firms' ranking positions, although all may be regarded good service providers among the Best Wedding Officiants in SF. More information on SFist's classified postings may be found here.
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