Hi! I’m Naomi Rose

I create one of a kind wedding ceremonies for couples who want to joyfully and powerfully transition into the next phase of their lives. I’m a warm, intuitive, down-to-earth and highly skilled wedding officiant. My role is part writer, part guide, and part steadying presence. While I have been called ‘the love magician’ and ‘the marrying fairy,’ I am more of a ‘marriage midwife.’ I take couples under my wing, guide them, and love on them on one of the most important days of their lives. 

“I had so so many emotions and tensions going into this process and Naomi was the most grounded, intuitive, compassionate yet steadfast guide I could’ve ever asked for.”  —Sarah, Sand Rock Farm

My intention as a ceremony leader is to facilitate presence, gratitude, belonging, and a deep inner homecoming. Margot Adler wrote, “Rituals have the power to reset the terms of our universe until we find ourselves suddenly and truly at home.” One couple I married said that they left their ceremony feeling “reborn,” with a deeper connection to their ancestors and to the world around them. To me, this is the true power of ceremony, and the reason I view this work not as a job, but as a calling.

“Naomi is redefining what an officiant can and should be.” —Simone, Morcom Rose Garden

Cracks in the system

I grew up in a very rigid and repressive religious community. As a teenager I started wondering why the messages I was receiving felt so out-dated, heavy-handed and hypocritical, and why my most innocent impulses elicited criticism and punishment. I wanted to see the world in color, not in black and white. So I asked a lot of questions and pushed back hard. I spent those years and the ones following wrestling with the big philosophical, religious, spiritual, and cultural questions, and challenged oppressive and dogmatic constructs that felt divisive and irrelevant. I became a divine disrupter, poking holes in sacred cows and pointing out cracks in faulty belief systems.

“A holy rascal is someone who loves religion too much to leave it in the hands of the professionals.” -Rabbi Rami Shapiro

“While it matters most to us how we felt about the ceremony, we have to share how much it pleased us to see even the toughest guest brought to tears. Friends and family all commented on how it was the most beautiful ceremony they had ever been to. One friend even said that he had never been to a wedding where the ceremony was the best part until ours.” —Aubrey, Waterfall Lodge

A life changing quest

I spent 4+ years backpacking alone through Latin America and Asia searching in earnest. I spent time in synagogues, monasteries, temples, tipis and sweat lodges. Wherever I traveled I saw the importance and necessity of rites of passage, of creating continuity between the generations, of marking big life milestones with intention and care, and of being witnessed, supported and celebrated by community. I learned that ceremony was an enduring, universal human impulse.

“Not only was the ceremony moving for my wife and myself but every single person in the space left the ceremony changed because of experiencing it.” —Alexa, Roaring Camp Railroads

Education & initiation

I returned to the United States and studied every type of alternative healing modality I could get my hands on, completed two years of earth-based ministerial training through the Center for Sacred Studies, became a Certified Life Cycle Celebrant with The Celebrant Foundation and Institute, and attended countless ceremonies with elders, wisdom keepers and medicine people from around the globe. I give thanks for all of those dedicated humans who’ve taught me so much about how to approach ceremony in a good way. Some of my deepest, most profound inspiration comes from mytho-poetry, botany, astronomy and archetypal psychology.

“It's almost as if the poets are offering a religion of noticing things, or a religion of paying attention…” -Ada Limón

“Thank you again for the amazing gift to us of that beautiful ceremony. It was art in action, and it was beyond meaningful.” —Erica, Seymour Marine Discovery Center

Ministering to the churchless

With more and more people identifying as other-than-religious, I recognized that there was a big need for someone who would midwife couples through this major rite of passage, and help them express their spiritual and philosophical sovereignty. I sometimes call myself a ‘minister to the churchless’ or ‘reverend gone rogue’ because I work with all of the god-squeamish couples who don’t have a priest, pastor or parish to go to, but who want a real ceremony nonetheless. Love is inherently sacred, so there’s no need to overlay it with a bunch of doctrine if that’s not what’s authentically true to you. There can absolutely be wonderment without worship, reverence without religion, and grandeur without God. And, as Madeleine L'Engle wrote, “There is nothing so secular that it cannot be sacred.” In other words, a nonreligious ceremony can still feel like a sacrament.

“I do believe that if your culture or tradition doesn’t have the specific ritual you are craving, then you are absolutely permitted to make up a ceremony of your own devising, fixing your own broken-down emotional systems with all the do-it-yourself resourcefulness of a generous plumber/poet.” -Elizabeth Gilbert

Having Naomi officiate our wedding was the best decision my husband and I made. The ceremony was everything I’d hoped for, and more than I could have imagined. It felt like a ritual, rite of passage, and sacred ceremony... exactly what I wanted, and somehow beyond what I thought it could be. It was the most special moment of my life.” —Michelle, The Hollins House

The beauty way

Four hundred plus ceremonies and multiple awards later, my mission and vision are clearer than ever: 

I’m committed to “finding more insightful ways of comprehending the great human transitions, and reinventing meaningful ways of ritualizing them,” and to becoming one of the generous plumber/poets Elizabeth Gilbert describes. 

Inclusivity is a core value of mine, and I wholeheartedly welcome couples of all backgrounds, identities, orientations, neuro-types and abilities. I am fiercely dedicated to helping Jewish couples safely and soulfully honor their ethnic, religious and cultural roots through ceremony. 

I’m also committed to being a potent force of female leadership in a realm historically dominated by men, and to disrupting an industry that has become overly consumptive and spiritually vacant. Most of all, I’m committed to reanimating the sacred as a way of counteracting the spiritual bereftness of the western world, and to bringing more beauty into this world.

“For as long as we’ve been evolving, Beauty has been a signal of the good.” -Janine Benyus

“Beauty is the means by which the Gods touch the senses, reach the heart, and attract us into life.” -James Hillman

“We couldn’t be happier with the ceremony, it is both of our highlights to our wedding and to our life. We truly appreciate you and feel so blessed to have our paths connected. Thank you for pouring your energy into ceremony. It is a blessing to the world.” —Nathan, Sequoia Retreat Center

My special sauce

In addition to the extensive training I mentioned above, I have a degree in creative writing and a background in theater and public speaking, which greatly enhances my ceremony writing and performance skills. I’m a weaver and a synthesizer and a natural bridge between the ancient and the modern, the mystical and the practical, tradition and innovation. I embody a sort of irreverent-reverence, and bring just the right balance of grittiness, goofiness and gravitas to my work with couples.

“The way you are navigating your role as an officiant is genius, needed, and trailblazing. —Jake, Glen Oaks Big Sur

Getting personal

I’m a native New Yorker and world traveler. My first word was supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. For real. I used to be a professional Sign Language interpreter, but a wrist injury changed the direction of my life and work. Later I became a professional astrologer, so I guess you could say that I've long been an interpreter of signs. I’m a Capricorn by the way. ;) I’m a word nerd who geeks-out on alliteration, etymology, and collective nouns. I am an avid student of aromatherapy and the ancient art of anointing. Most of all, I am the over-the-top, entirely smitten, seriously obsessed mama of Leela Grace, the 6 year old cavapoo pictured below.

In addition to wedding ceremonies, I officiate funerals, memorials and celebrations of life. I also give talks and facilitate conversations exploring meaning-making, transition, and collective life in an age where shared ritual structures have faded, and what it might look like to rebuild them in ways that are grounded, participatory, and relevant to modern life.

Words I live by: “Wisdom tells me I am nothing. Love tells me I am everything. Between these two my life flows.” —Nisargadatta Maharaj

“Our ceremony was purely and honestly of another universe. I'm still in awe of how beautiful that experience was. Naomi really helped us cross the threshold of marriage, and we are forever grateful for everything she's done for us.” -Shane, Carmel Valley Ranch