Rev. Phil was a great and lucky find. My husband and I don't really have the same spiritual views…read moreand we almost went with a friend officiating the wedding. When I changed my mind and decided I didn't want to leave God out of our wedding, I said that I would pay for and find the officiant. I admit I didn't shop around. My wedding planning approach was one and done. Once I found something I liked, I was done "shopping." I liked that Rev. Phil offered a free intro session before committing to his services. After the first one hour meeting, my husband also liked him and we were sold. We did the full package and I'd recommend it. The love story was definitely the best part of the service. It's true what the other reviewers said, people talked about that love story for weeks and months after the wedding. We were willing to make fun of ourselves and this really helped carry-off the fun of the story. Rev. Phil has a great knack for telling a story. Everyone was laughing, including us. So many of our pictures show me looking around to the crowd laughing at my ridiculous self and trying to make eye contact with someone mentioned in the story. We were also able to incorporate a touching candle-lighting memorial for my husband's deceased parents, as well as readings that were a mix of religious and secular. Rev. Phil is very detail-oriented and will give you explicit instructions and details about each part of the service. I found this helpful, as I didn't want to worry about all the details myself. As he says, he's the professional and will take the stress of this part of the wedding off of you. As a bonus, I heard he even "fooled" by super-Catholic mom by wearing his collar. No grief for no Catholic wedding! Rev. Phil really helped make our wedding a perfect, unique and special night! I'd recommend him to anyone!

Reverend Phil. Wow. How do I even begin to express how amazing he made our ceremony? If you're…read morelooking for a personalized ceremony that will engage versus bore your guests, call him today and cross your fingers that he is available. I couldn't begin to count the amount of times we heard how amazing our ceremony was. He will make your guests laugh, cry, and truly feel a part of your story. Although we didn't know him for years, our guests thought that he had known us from the beginning. How cool is that? I know your stressed and the to-do list is never ending. Rev Phil will make this portion of your planning seamless. He will guide you through the details and make it easy. He is organized, insightful, and truly invested in his couples. So, stop reading this and call him today.

Lyvonne did a wonderful job in performing the wedding ceremony. She kept in touch with us…read morethroughout the entire time up to the day of the ceremony. She was very accommodating with any of our special requests. I highly recommend her to anyone. Thank you Lyvonne for everything.

Lyvonne was fantastic to work with! We hired her when all of our wedding plans changed due to Covid…read moreand we downsized to just our immediate family in attendance. She was great to work with, open to all of our changes during the ceremony. Our families had such lovely compliments to say about her and the ceremony and we loved having her as a part of our special day!

I had the Pleasure of being married by Rev Angie & she was nothing short of amazing! You can…read morehonestly tell she loves what is that she does. She not only was kind and professional she also went out of her way to assure my wedding certificate was obtained even after her job was done. I genuinely appreciate her willing to go the extra mile. She will make your special moment as intimate and private as you want it or as grand and & festive as she can get it for you #8478737463

We were married by Rev Pam in Central Park in Des Plaines. She is absolutely fantastic. She was…read morefast to respond to my questions regarding availability. The process to book online is so easy and fast. She is very thorough and covers all the little details. On our wedding day she gave us exactly what we were wanting, a small intimate ceremony. She has such a passion for marrying people. She is absolutely wonderful and we are so happy with our day. Thank you so much Rev Pam, you made our day wonderful!!

Bruce did a GREAT job officiating our wedding in September. He was an absolute delight to work…read morewith. He offers a lot of content and framework for those who need guidance or ideas but also allows you to really customize what you want to be included in your ceremony. He has a very kind and calm presence. He knows how to officiate and makes everything very easy. He's a great public speaker, and the words he wrote for us were just perfect. We could not recommend him enough.

We were lucky enough to have Bruce as our officiant, and loved the entire process of working with…read morehim. Using his ceremony tools, we were able to customize our ceremony to fit exactly what we were looking for along with expert guidance every step of the way. He understood our desire to have a short and simple ceremony, but helped us to ensure that it was beautiful and meaningful. Bruce is a wonderful public speaker, and many of our guests commented on how much they enjoyed the ceremony. Most importantly, he is extremely responsive and is just a lovely person - we loved every interaction with him, and couldn't have asked for a better officiant!

5/5 Stars - Incredible officiant for a custom, heartfelt wedding!…read more Rev. Anne with the Rev for Whatev is hands down the best wedding officiant you could ask for! She made our ceremony feel like it was being delivered by a lifelong friend. She was amazing at incorporating all our special details--from including our two dogs in the ceremony to guiding our niece and nephews through our unity planting. It was warm, emotional, and perfectly paced. We highly recommend Rev. Anne to anyone getting married in the Chicago area!

Reverend Anne officiated our wedding a couple months ago, and we couldn't have been happier! The…read morething that set her apart from the other officiants I was looking at was her website - it contains so much information, including faqs, services, sample ceremonies, and pricing. She had all the answers to my questions already! We picked the partially customized ceremony for our secular ceremony, and she drafted a couple versions for us to review. It was so easy communicating with her. We mostly emailed, but we scheduled an in person meeting when we were in town to meet up with our wedding vendors. She is extremely nice, organized, and professional. She took care of the paperwork after the wedding, so it is one less thing to stress about! Stop looking around because she will take care of you. We highly recommend her for any ministerial needs.

There are not enough stars to truly express how we feel about Love Story Weddings!!! Reverend Ed…read moreturned our wedding into a fairy tale. He took what could have easily been a few short vows and kiss... into a beautiful story. Our family and friends not only witnessed our unity, but learned about our journey from the very beginning. They heard how we met, how we grew to who we are and even our little inside jokes. They were reminded why we wanted them there in the first place... and they had FUN! Guests are still reaching out to tell us how much they loved our ceremony, thanks to Reverend Ed. Throughout the planning process, he reminded us what we were doing all of this for! More than that, I can confidently say I fell more in love with my husband on my wedding day, as we were taken on a journey through our own lives. I am so incredibly happy we booked Love Story Weddings for our special day. It positively would not have been the same without Reverend Ed.

Rev. Brad presented a beautiful ceremony! It was everything I wanted and the guests enjoyed it!…read moreHowever, he lacks punctuality and professionalism when it comes to arriving on time to the ceremony, communication the week before the wedding, and submitting your legal document to the county clerk in a timely fashion. He didn't return my many attempts at contacting him over the course of 1 month until he noticed my 3 star review on Google. Then a month later when I mentioned that I would add a 1 star review if he did not submit my paperwork to the county within the next 2 weeks, he threatened me with his lawyer. So not worth the extremely high price for his service!

We hired Jim initially to do our bartending for our wedding. A family friend was lined up to wed…read moreus. After meeting Jim, we were a little bummed we hadn't hired him to officiate for us. When our family friend fell ill and was unable to do the ceremony, we called Jim right away and he was able to step in. We were so thrilled with what Jim put together in such short notice and received many compliments on the beautiful ceremony! He was courteous, professional, and paid attention to the details that mattered to us. I'd recommend Jim to anyone that asked!

Jim was the officiant for our wedding this past weekend and he did a phenomenal job! During the…read moreceremony, he personalized the speech - including details about us that made it feel like we knew each other for years. He was very responsive and easy to get a hold of if we had questions or concerns. Many people came up to us afterwards commenting on how beautiful the ceremony was. Jim is an asset to have on your wedding team & a great person to work with! I highly recommend him!

We were planning a ceremony that was respectful of all faiths, sexual-orientations, and…read moreethnicities. We wanted someone who spoke well, had a sense of humor & experience we could depend on. We met with 7 officiants from a variety of backgrounds. Marguerite was among the most expensive, but we were happy to pay top dollar for what she seemed to offer. (6 months until our wedding on Aug. 16) Her "custom" writing process was based on questionnaires. She later poked at me saying "you have the longest couples questionnaire ever!" This felt condescending, but I brushed it off. EMAIL FOLLOW UP (keep reading) 1) to schedule rehearsal & offer to feature her on our website. 2) to offer her a hotel room for the night of our rehearsal so she wouldn't have to drive the long distance back & forth twice. 3) to return our questionnaires. No response for 5 days, so 4) to confirm she got them. 5) to ask when we would see the 1st draft, to which she responded "no later than July 20." LOVELY! But, July 20th came and went. We emailed her asking if she had a chance to work on it? Ending with "Totally cool if you need more time, just wanting to know what to expect." Her response: "August 1 or just before is my deadline. I have two ceremonies to complete before I start yours." WAIT... WHAT!? I called her. She was snide and defensive. Admitted she had forgotten, totally unapologetic. Then a sharp remark along the lines of "if you're in a rush to get your ceremony I can try to get it done." This was appalling to me. I explained that she's the celebrant not me, I'm simply going by what she told us. I then asked if anything had changed for her during the Summer, making our wedding a burden? She responded with "I've never had a client follow up so much." UMM.. Her arrogance and unreliability was unsettling. My fiancé & I talked it over and decided that given the time crunch (3 weeks at this point!) & our 50% deposit, we would stick it out & hope for a well-written ceremony. SHE DID WRITE A NICE CEREMONY. This gave us some comfort. EXCEPT!!!! At the end of the email was: "Finally and unfortunately, I will not be able to attend your wedding rehearsal. I failed to put a business trip on my personal calendar." ATTEND!? YOU ARE THE REHEARSAL! She found a rehearsal fill-in, & said she'd "try her best" to make it back in time to officiate for us. Oh, & this was 6 days before our wedding. GEE, THANKS! We were afraid we'd end up with what we didn't want: a stranger reading a script. The unknowns had our stress levels shooting through the roof. We decided to reach out to another officiant we liked a lot, Howard Katz. He remembered us immediately saying "uh oh, what happened to your officiant!?" He gave us some much needed laughs. It was refreshing to have a caring personality on the line. Without reference, I hadn't realized how impersonal & brash Marguerite had been. He asked how our planning had gone and if we were ready for our big day. Coincidentally, he would be working 20 miles from the farm the day of our wedding. He told us he'd be happy to jump in and marry us! It was crazy even considering this TWO days before our wedding. We sent him $50 in good faith just for the effort & he said that he'd bring his suit to work with him and be on-call for us until 4. AMAZING. Our rehearsal fill-in had a family emergency & had to bail last minute, so Anita Vaughn (back up #2) came instead. She was a very sweet woman and did her best given the chaotic circumstances. She really had no clue what was going on - and we didn't fault her for this. We basically conducted our own rehearsal with Anita reading Marguerite's lines and taking notes. Marguerite promised she'd go over these notes to make sure she did everything right for our wedding (if she made it back in time!). WEDDING DAY. With Howard on-call, we figured Marguerite would ring us at some point to let us know that she had landed, right!? NOPE. At noon, my fiancé had to call her. Upon arrival, her first priority was to "settle up" on her final payment. Naturally. Then she married us. Read the wrong script (1st edit, not the final draft!) with NONE of Anita's notes. She skipped my sister-in-law's blessing completely, and the ceremony was over. People didn't know, but we did. CRAPPY. POST-WEDDING. She emailed us the next day, apologizing for skipping my SIL's blessing & stating that our keepsake ceremony copy would be sent "by the end of Labor Day weekend." We just received it (addressed only to my husband. WTH!?), postmarked 6 weeks past Labor Day weekend. Without ever asking if we were satisfied with her, she presumptuously emailed me: "I'd be delighted if you would send a testimonial or your feedback that I can cut and paste and post to my website. I find that couples really read the reviews. In these days of Yelp, reviews matter a whole lot." YES, THEY DO! And I'm rarely inspired to write a bad one. But, this is our honest experience. Cheers.

There are not enough good things I can say about working with Marguerite as our wedding celebrant…read more She was utterly fantastic. My husband and I are not at all religious, which actually makes it difficult to find an officiant or celebrant who will respect our opinions and keep religion out of a ceremony. We also wanted to find an officiant who performed all kinds of ceremonies, including same-sex unions because we think it's important to acknowledge all types of relationships (and a lot of people out there just WON'T do the same-sex unions). We came across Marguerite on www.theknot.com and we loved her site. When we first met with her, we were really impressed with her candor, demeanor and level of knowledge of all kinds of ceremonies, traditions, literature, etc. Her process is lengthy but the ceremony turns out wonderfully. We filled out a questionnaire that Marguerite turned into a beautiful ceremony about our love story. She wrote vows for us, gave us a bunch of choices for readings, vows, etc. and the ceremony was amazing. I have never heard more people compliment a wedding ceremony like they complimented ours - I don't think there was a dry eye in the house. Our story was wonderful, the vows were beautiful and the entire ceremony went off without a hitch. Marguerite is a true professional and I could not possibly be happier with the way she writes and puts together a ceremony.

Victoria was great. She came to our home and married us with all our daughters present. Was very…read morepolite and professional would highly recommend

Rev. Victoria was great to work with. My husband and I were looking for a non-religious ceremony…read morebut wasn't sure what we wanted in it. Victoria gave us a bunch of options that we could choose from and customize that made our day perfect. She was very professional and spoke loudly so our guests could hear with no issues. We are very happy we went with Victoria for our wedding.

Are you engaged? Debating whether or not it's worth the money to find a wedding planner? Le me tell…read moreyou...it's very, very worth the money to have a wedding planner. Well, not just any wedding planner - you really should consider and call Tying the Knot. I'll admit it, when I was first engaged, I was skeptical about having a wedding planner. I thought, "what can they really help me with? I love to plan, I've figured it all out." MEH, Wrong. Turned out - having Brooke around really helped us with staying on track, planning and the overall timing of everything we needed to do. Everyone at Tying the Knot is very helpful and knowledgeable. I never felt like I was bothering them with any of my 1001 questions I may have had (or more). Getting married and all of the planning is a really big deal and it takes a lot of planning that most people don't have the time for. Consider the value of your time and invest that to some great wedding planners at Tying the Knot. You might go "hmm...do I need this" at first but when it's all said and done...and everything went smoothly...you'll be happy you went the route of a wedding planner.

Hiring Brooke and her team from Tying the Knot was the best money we spent for our wedding. We…read morehired Brooke for "day of" wedding services, which included speaking with all of our vendors, creating a wedding timeline, attending the wedding rehearsal and coordinating everything the day of our wedding. I knew I would be very involved with choosing all of our vendors and doing all of the planning so this was the perfect amount of help for our situation. We also got an hour of her time to use how we wanted and we chose to use it by having her attend our final meeting with our caterer. She asked the perfect questions! Brooke ensured all of our vendors knew their responsibilities and where / when to show up. She helped me coordinate things like who needed parking, who required a hot meal, etc. to ensure I didn't miss anything with all of the contracts. She helped coordinate our rehearsal at the actual church (not the dinner) and she spent the day of with my bridesmaids and me making sure we were on time to everything. While we did pictures around the city, she went to our reception venue to ensure everything was set up correctly. The few (tiny) issues that did come up on the actual wedding day she handled without even getting us involved. It was perfect! My parents were skeptical about having someone help us because they thought they could do everything I needed the day of the wedding, but I wanted everyone to be able to relax and have fun without worrying about all the details. Brooke totally won them over and they agreed afterwards that it was money well spent. We would absolutely recommend her to any of our friends!