Santa Cruz Wedding Officiant Creating One-of-a-Kind Ceremonies for Modern Couples

• Over 20 years of education and training in ritual and ceremony

• Certified wedding celebrant

• Over a decade of professional officiating experience

• More than 400 weddings officiated

• 200+ five-star reviews across Google, WeddingWire and The Knot

• Specializing in secular, spiritual-but-not-religious, interfaith and inclusive ceremonies

• Officiating custom wedding ceremonies, micro-weddings and intimate elopements

• Serving couples throughout Santa Cruz, Monterey, Carmel, Big Sur, and Los Gatos

To learn more about my philosophy and approach, keep reading below. If you have specific questions about the ceremonies I offer or would like to inquire about availability, please contact me.

“Naomi married my partner and I with what I can truly say was the best wedding ceremony that I have ever heard. That would be high praise from most people, but I am also a professional wedding photographer and I’ve heard 500+ wedding ceremonies.” —Simone Anne Lang, Morcom Rose Garden

Reimagining ceremony for a secular world.

With roughly 30% of Americans identifying as nonreligious, many couples don’t know where to turn for a ceremony that both honors their beliefs and offers them the “transcendent transition” they’re longing for. In response to this cultural and spiritual gap, I’ve spent the last decade reimagining ceremony for a secular world. I created a rite-of-passage process that walks couples across the threshold of marriage in a way that feels intentional and initiatory. Initiatory because as their first ritual as a married couple, their ceremony empowers them to create and reimagine their own symbols and traditions going forward. After doing this work for over a decade, the one thing I know for sure is this: the extent to which a couple engages this process, is the extent to which their ceremony can be transformative and even life-changing. In the words of John O’Donohue, “If we approach our decisive thresholds with reverence and attention, the crossing will bring us more than we could have ever hoped for.”

“I remember our wedding day and how my life changed since then because of your ceremonial blessing. Our wedding ceremony was the most pivotal affirmation of our relationship, our identities and values, and it has strengthened the very core of my being.” -Lyza, Hyatt Carmel Highlands

Wedding ceremonies need a rebrand!

Increasingly, couples are downplaying the ceremony and rushing straight to the party. I hear this all the time: “We want something quick and painless,” as if the ceremony is something they have to muscle through.

Which makes perfect sense because we haven’t been given very inspiring models for what a non-traditional wedding ceremony can and should be. 

As a result, most couples contact me knowing far more about what they don’t want in their ceremony than what they do want!

If you bristle at the thought of cookie-cutter templates, emotionally flat scripts, cringy wedding tropes and sand pouring rituals, you’re not alone.

A wedding ceremony can be so much more than a prelude to the party. It can be a love letter to your lives, and transcend all of your assumptions and expectations about what a wedding ceremony can look and feel like. 

As one bride said: “Miraculously you achieved the seemingly impossible task of putting together a ceremony that was spiritual, solemn, lighthearted, funny, warm, and SO customized to reflect our unique interests and personalities. You made the ceremony everything we’d hoped for and more, and we just can’t thank you enough.” 

So if you want a one-of-a-kind ceremony that’s secular but still sacred, transcendent yet grounded, ceremonial but not stiff, lighthearted while also being emotionally deep, and totally reflective of you, let’s talk.

“You illustrated a way to bridge spiritual reverence with realness and levity, which is exactly what we were looking for.” -Todd, Waterfall Lodge

Ceremony is a universal human impulse.

The human impulse for ceremony transcends aesthetics and ideology. From state park elopements and rustic DIY ceremonies, to luxury venues and black tie events, from first marriages to blended families and second chances, and from staunch atheists to cultural hybrid and multi-faith celebrations, I create deeply personalized ceremonies for people across an enormous range of backgrounds, beliefs, cultures and origin stories. The common thread is not aesthetics or ideology. It’s an experience that is emotionally honest, symbolically resonant and unmistakably alive.

As one couple reflected two years later: “If we had to do our wedding all over again and had little money or had to choose between fancy food or venue, you are the one thing we would choose every time. Your ceremony was a real ceremony that put this great love and intention into the world. We still feel the impact on our everyday lives.”

Another couple wrote, “Many guests told us that our ceremony touched them, too. One friend wrote, ‘That gorgeous ceremony made us feel more *alive,* more in love, so deeply moved. What a beautiful moment in the universe!’ We couldn’t agree more.”

If this kind of ceremony speaks to you, let’s talk.