OFFICIANTS
Matthew Bailey (New Haven, CT)
WEBSITE - Religious, Non-Religious, Interfaith, Traditional, Contemporary, With Mass, Without Mass, Same-Sex
REVIEW - N/A: June 2011 wedding. Thanks to the lovely Peaches, we found this amazing Priest. My wife being raised Roman Catholic it was important to her to have our union blessed by a priest. The Roman Catholic Church does not perform same sex unions so Peaches suggested I contact Bishop George Lucey from St. Francis of Assisi in Glen Ridge. Unfortunately Bishop Lucey was already engaged for the evening of our wedding so he searched within this community and low and behold Fr. Bailey traveled from St. Joseph of Arimathea church in New Haven, CT to officiate. His ceremony was absolutely lovely and he presented us with a certificate of marriage from the American Catholic Church afterwards and said some kind words to us about how NJ may not recognize our union as equal but that it is in the eyes of God.
April Beer (Roseland, NJ)
WEBSITE - Civil Union, Interfaith Ceremony, Non-religious, Same Sex, Single Religion Ceremony
Richard Cash
REVIEW - lisab711: October 2011. A+
Our ceremony was hand tailored to suite my fi. and I and it really showed. It was so beautiful and personal. He was a doll to work with! We had a wine ceremony which we all loved and even my bridal party enjoyed chatting with Richard before the ceremony. Great job by him!
Our ceremony was hand tailored to suite my fi. and I and it really showed. It was so beautiful and personal. He was a doll to work with! We had a wine ceremony which we all loved and even my bridal party enjoyed chatting with Richard before the ceremony. Great job by him!
Deacon Frank D’Auguste (Rutgers Catholic Center)
REVIEW: October 2011 (A++) Deacon Frank spent a lot of time with us starting about 10 months before our wedding to discuss our relationship, our future, & our ceremony. He was funny & made our ceremony very personal. I loved that he was not pushy in terms of wanting us to be practicing Catholics (which would have really turned me off from the whole process).
Jill Dillner
Gerald Fierst (Montclair, NJ)
REVIEW - golfrgal: May 2011 wedding. Gerry was wonderful! We wanted a non-religious officiant to perform our ceremony. Gerry worked with us to customize a ceremony to fit our personalities, all the while remaining professional and clean-cut. Everything about it was beautiful and guests have commented how touching and unique our ceremony was.
John Graf
REVIEW - melliott09: April 2011 wedding. Reverend John Graf was awesome! Great personality, sense of humor, and very easy to work with. He provided us with a bunch of sample ceremonies to help with the “flow” of the ceremony, and I was able to put whatever I wanted pertaining to us into the ceremony. He actually seemed like he had everything memorized as well, and was not reading off a paper at all during our ceremony. He is available to be booked privately I believe, so you are not restricted to only using him at BWM.
Knot by the Sea - Weddings by Alexandra Paez
Rabbi Bill Kurry
REVIEW - philleej: September 2011. A++++++++++++++++++++++
Let me tell you, Rabbi Bill is the freaking MAN. He was so warm and funny, and unbelievable to work with. He is an interfaith Rabbi, and he truly made our ceremony the best ceremony ever. He gave us homework to send him funny/touching stories about each other for his speech during the ceremony and it was a huge hit. Everyone came up to me and told me how much they loved the ceremony and how they felt so included in our wedding. Rabbi Bill rules!
Let me tell you, Rabbi Bill is the freaking MAN. He was so warm and funny, and unbelievable to work with. He is an interfaith Rabbi, and he truly made our ceremony the best ceremony ever. He gave us homework to send him funny/touching stories about each other for his speech during the ceremony and it was a huge hit. Everyone came up to me and told me how much they loved the ceremony and how they felt so included in our wedding. Rabbi Bill rules!
George Lucey (West Orange, NJ)
WEBSITE - Religious, Non-Religious, Interfaith, Traditional, Contemporary, With Mass, Without Mass, Same-Sex, Bilingual
REVIEW - N/A: July 2011 wedding. My husband was baptized and raised Roman Catholic and I was raised Methodist but was never baptized, so we wanted to find an officiant who would incorporate Catholic elements and traditions, but who wouldn’t require me to be part of the Roman Catholic church because of my personal beliefs. We thought we would just have to go with a non-denominational minister or other non-religiously affiliated officiant, so we were beyond thrilled when we found out about Bishop George. He used to be a priest with the Roman Catholic church, but left due to some problems he felt strongly about that weren’t being addressed by the Pope and Vatican. He wound up becoming a priest (and later a Bishop) with the American National Catholic Church which is a Catholic community whose beliefs are Catholic at the core, but just a bit more contemporary than the Roman Catholic Church. Anyway, Bishop George is just really funny and knowledgeable about a lot of different cultures and religions and as soon as he heard about the predicament we were in he said he would be able to do exactly what we wanted. In fact, when he found out that part of my family is Greek Orthodox and that my husband’s side is all Spanish, he said that we could incorporate Greek Orthodox traditions and some elements in Spanish during our ceremony if we wanted. Our ceremony wound up being absolutely amazing and the perfect blend of Catholic, Orthodox, English, Spanish, and Greek elements. My family was brought to tears when Bishop George did the Greek crowning ceremony, my husband’s side was beyond thrilled that part of our vows were in Spanish, and several of our guests who are devout Roman Catholics approached both us and Bishop George after the ceremony to tell him what an amazing and beautiful ceremony it was. Not only that, but he had us and our guests laughing throughout the ceremony and, because it was a good 90+ degrees outside and we were all clearly drenched in sweat, he got through the ceremony as quickly as he could so everyone could get inside into the air conditioning. I 100% recommend Bishop George as he made our wedding ceremony more perfect than we could have ever imagined it being.
REVIEW - SpillerExtraordinaire: June 2010 wedding. No set fee - donations to the church (www.stfrancisnj.com) accepted. MH was raised lapsed catholic and I'm an unaffiliated mutt (my mother is Catholic and dad Jewish) so we didn't want to misrepresent ourselves
or our beliefs and we didn't want to make any of our families feel like
we weren't including the religious elements. We took this
recommendation from our original coordinator at the Mill who said if
she ever got married Father George would be the one to do it. Father
George was incredibly accommodating and worked with us to make sure
that we accomplished this. Also, we really liked the fact that he's a
Ph.D since both of us are studying for our Ph.D.s so we felt like he
knew where we were coming from. We met with him 2 times and we
contacted him numerous times via phone and email. He was never tough
to get in touch with. Also, he was great during the ceremony with his
sermon and also with helping out to hide us when we lit the unity
candle with a lighter since the tapers kept going out. He was very
friendly, very accommodating, very accepting of what we believed
differently from him, and very, very intelligent. When we were trying
to work in our families religions he was able to come up with readings
off the top of his head that captured both.
Interfaith Clergy
REVIEW: -cutiepie12702: August 2011.Interfaith Clergy – A – I am Catholic and DH’s family is Jewish. We used both a priest and a rabbi (Fr. Francis Maione and Rabbi Claire Green) and found them through Interfaith Clergy. They were easy to work with and showed up early and everything went very smoothly. The only complaint I have was that I sent the Rabbi the vows I wanted ahead of time, and she did not use them. That was disappointing but in the grand scheme of things did not make that big of a deal – even DH didn’t notice they weren’t the correct vows. Both officiants were very nice and friendly and I would recommend them.
Paul Mayer
WEBSITE - Catholic, Interfaith, Ecumenical, Jewish-Christian, Non-denominational, Sacred Unions, Spanish and English
John Michael O'Sullivan (Englishtown, NJ)
Wendy Venezio (Bayville, NJ)
WEBSITE - flochan07: We found Rev. Wendy Venezio through an advertisement through the "Celebrations" magazine. She's quite personable and fairly accessible via email and phone (more responsive through the phone). She took the time to hammer out the details of the ceremony ab approximately a month out. No complaints from me.