“Sheila, Words cannot truly express the joy you brought to our wedding day. Your ceremony brought our families and friends to life. The feeling of love and happiness filled the room and transcended through to the rest of the evening, and many days to follow. You not only captured the essence of who we are as individuals, but more importantly, who we are as husband and wife. Thank you for your patience, thoughtfulness and the love you have given us. The advice you have given is invaluable. What a magical way to start "our new beginning." We are forever indebted to you.”

Marissa &CJ

“I there are no better words, that I could think of, to describe to describe how wonderful, amazing, creative, intuitive, patient, and accommodating that Sheila is. When we met Sheila we all just clicked! She was very thorough in her questions when she met us because nether my husband (fiancé at the time) or I had any idea where to begin. She walked us through every step. She helped us out with the family politics that always go into planning a wedding. She was even there when I needed to vent! When It came down to the actual ceremony, Sheila more than delivered! She knocked it out of the park! There wasn't a dry eye in the place! She made the ceremony so customized, personal, and tailored to my husband and I and our story. I was told by so many of our friends and family that my ceremony was "the best they have ever seen" I have a big family and they have been to a ton of weddings so hearing that really meant a lot. At this point I consider Sheila more then just the person who married us, I consider her my friend. So I just had to pass this info onto all of you. Fell free to get my info from Sheila if you have any questions or need a reference about her.”

Natalie Allgyer

“Sheila was Wonderful! Our wedding was Beautiful and guests were in a state of AWE! They were gleaming and enjoyed every aspect of our Ceremony! Sheila has a warm personality and will go out of her way to make sure you and guests are happy! We will always remember our Wedding Event! We HIGHLY recommend her! 5 thumbs! UP!”

Jacqueline Champlin

“My husband and I were quite at ease with Sheila, for she is an outgoing, sincere woman who was willing to take our ideas -- we had quite a few -- and coordinate them into a cohesive ceremony. We first met with her at her home seven months before our wedding. In between, we touched base and bounced a few ideas off of one another. Whenever I called and left a message, Sheila responded promptly; if I sent her an email, she would take time to come up with a thoughtful reply. What made me most comfortable with Sheila is her dedication to being an officiant. I quickly realized that being an officiant is her calling, and that she was going to lead a memorable, poignant ceremony. She told my husband and me during our first meeting that she thought the ceremony is the most important part of the wedding. At that moment, I was certain she would be a good fit for us. During the actual ceremony, Sheila also told “our story,” which started before we both met in person; she then gave the important details our first date and the many adventures my husband and I have had together. She described our personalities, how they mesh together, and how important my husband and I are to one another. A few weeks before the wedding, I shared with Sheila how my then fiancé helped me cope with and grieve the deaths of two of my beloved cats just months before the wedding. She was able to incorporate my feelings about the support my now husband gave me during this difficult time. Furthermore, Sheila very successfully told a few stories about my husband’s late mother. She approached her absence with dignity and sensitivity for my husband and his extended family; her words were followed by a tender moment of silence. Nearly all of our guests raved about Sheila. Several of our guests asked us how long we had known Sheila. They assumed we had been friendly with her for a while, for she was able to talk about us expertly during the ceremony. One of our friends blogged about Sheila, calling her “awesome.” One of my best friends said it was the best ceremony she had ever attended, for it was intimate, drew in our audience, and reflected the love between my husband and I as well as the importance of our families and friends.”

Stacy G K

“Sheila did a FABULOUS job officiating our wedding and we would HIGHLY recommend her. My husband and I are an interfaith couple and decided last minute to have a wedding celebration. Because we only had less than one and a half months to plan our wedding, we relied heavily on referrals from friends, family and our event coordinator at our wedding venue. Sheila came so highly recommended, with glowing reviews such as “the best wedding ceremony I’ve ever heard”, that I had to call her. After speaking with her via telephone just a few times, she ended up being my one and only call for hiring an officiant. Sheila quickly made us feel at ease with her openness, her warmth, and caring personality that’s complimented by a fun-loving sense of humor! Sheila addressed all the concerns we had as an interfaith couple, was always professional and very accommodating. She rearranged her schedule as permitted so that she was available to perform our ceremony. Due to our short time frame, she expedited and consolidated our meetings without making us feel rushed or short changed in any way. She quickly grasped the essence of our relationship by asking pertinent questions, guiding yet allowing us to comfortably and fully convey our innermost thoughts all while listening intently so that she was able to gather all the necessary information she needed to personalize our ceremony. She “understood and got us”. Our ceremony reflected that so well that most guests thought she was a personal friend of ours that we knew for years on end. She captured us that perfectly. All her words had special meaning, she captured us as individuals, as a couple and as a group by including our guests as part of the ceremony. Everyone felt the positive energy, the love and the warmth leaving many of us with tears of joy and ear-to-ear smiles as she brilliantly and creatively conveyed our love story. Every guests said “it was genuinely the most beautiful, heartfelt ceremony they have ever attended”, “amazing” and “absolutely loved it”. Most of all, we loved it and so did our parents, who are from different faiths and we were initially worried as to how they would respond to an interfaith ceremony. She tailored our ceremony and vows to uniquely fit our needs while emphasizing the common bond of all the religions making each person feel welcomed, loved and connected to one another as if we were all one unit. We were blessed to have found Sheila and have her perform our ceremony. We could not have been happier with the outcome and would not change a thing! We still get compliments to this day. We offer the highest of recommendations. Any couple, interfaith or not, who are planning a wedding will be in excellent, caring hands when choosing Sheila as their celebrant.”

Diane & Ron

“Simply put, Sheila exceeded our expectations in every facet of our ceremony preparation. Sheila poured her heart and her soul into our wedding ceremony to make it refreshing, intimate, meaningful, filled with love and tenderness, and above all, unique. We were looking for a non-traditional ceremony that would bring our friends and families together as one entity to wish us well in our married life together. Sheila succeeded in doing this with her charisma and her wonderful way of telling our love story. She guided us with preparing our vows. She made MANY refreshing suggestions for incorporating traditions and symbolism that WE hold dear and that defines us as a couple. She traveled hundreds of miles to be with us for several days to meet our families and to learn more about what defines us as people. We were (and are) important to her. She became part of our family. We love her and what she has done for us. We cannot think of a more wonderful tribute to Sheila than to tell you how much she is adored by us. Do yourself a favor when you are planning your wedding affair... contact Sheila. You will never look back! Thank you Sheila! We love and appreciate everything you have done for us.”

Ed & Amy Mackey

“Sheila is awesome, great, and fantastic! I’m in the Navy and I am set to deploy soon, so time wasn’t on our side to go through a wedding planner and get all the funds together to have a big wedding. We initially were going to do a small intimate ceremony at my wife’s house with a guests list consisting of core family and friends. What started as a small gathering to celebrate our love for one another, quickly snowballed into a full blown wedding. With that said, I was tasked with quickly finding an officiant. Sheila found my wife from a website and showed great diligence by following up with my wife while I was looking for an officiant. We arranged a meeting with Sheila, and that is where the magic happens. Sheila is very engaging and comfortable to talk to. My wife and I have a love story that is very beautiful, yet hard to believe, being as though we have been together for less than a year. Sheila was very attentive in learning about us and our love story. She suggested a venue (Rebecca’s Restaurant) to have the wedding, due to our time and money constraints, without forcing it on us. Sheila also had a prior engagement the day of our wedding and decided to fore go the engagement to do our wedding. With the story in hand, Sheila created a very intimate, family oriented, cultural and UNFORGETTABLE ceremony. LOVE was definitely in the building. Sheila wove a tapestry of our story using the fabric of our love for one another. Our ceremony left many of our guests saying it was the most beautiful, heartfelt, and intimate ceremony that they ever witnessed. Who needs a million dollar wedding when you can have Sheila? She really makes the wedding about your love and not the show. I think too many people want the show, but the substance gets lost in translation. Our love was loud and clear. Thank you Sheila!”

MARCUS

“Sheila was the officiant at our Union Ceremony, and were beyond thrilled with everything that she did for us. First, she met with us and got to know us as a couple. She asked questions that surprised us at first - but she listened, guided us and heard our story. She ultimately used that conversation to inform the ceremony in ways that made not only the day special, but made the large gathering of family and friends meaningful in a way that delighted and touched us all. I lost track of the number of people who told me that it was the "best wedding they'd ever been to" - which surprised me when some of them were including their own! Sheila was highly flexible with us regarding our timing, and went out of her way multiple times to accommodate our schedule and our needs - including doing an abridged second ceremony for us that was technically required which was just as memorable and touching as the Big Day. (And I must note that she cut short a vacation to be there for us as well!) Sheila used everything she knew about us as a couple and shaped it into a ceremony, a day and a memory that is so special to us that we will be forever grateful. We could not recommend her more highly!”

Andrew & John

“As New Yorkers, we were extremely fortunate to be given Sheila Gay Gross' name as someone who could perform our Civil Union ceremony in New Jersey. We did not meet Sheila before the ceremony, but we spoke with her by telephone and emailed to her information about ourselves. From these brief exchanges, Sheila was able to make our ceremony into a very personal and moving event which far exceeded our expectations. It was absolutely right for us. At the beginning of the ceremony, Sheila told a lovely story about taking changes and further established this tone with other spiritually philosophical passages she recited. Although we expected that we would simply exchange rings between us, Sheila had our two witnesses, dear friends of ours for many years, cup these rings in their hands as they each, one after another, extended their wishes to us and for our union. Sheila led us through this with great ease and made this a highly memorable and joyous occasion. Sheila was flexible. She permitted us to schedule the ceremony for a time which is not normally convenient for her. Equally important, she allowed us to bring our small dog into her lovely home! All this being said, Reverend Dr. Sheila Gay Gross also left a very important personal imprint upon us and this important event in our lives.”

Tom and Gino

“Dr. Sheila is such an amazing woman! My husband and I were so pleased with the ceremony, she spoke about us as though she had known us for years. Her energy, passion and positivity are so wonderful, and every time I felt like crying (tears of joy) I would look at her and see her smile, which would calm me right away. My husband is from Italy so many of our guests did not understand English. Reverend Sheila allowed us to include Italian passages and also to repeat the vows both in English and Italian. I recommend her to everyone and can honestly say there is no need to search for anyone else, she is perfect. You'll love her!”

Paola + Lorenzo

“My husband and I are not a religious couple but we are spiritual in our own special way. Sheila helped to convey that during our magical ceremony. Our guests still RAVE about it saying it was fun, interactive, romantic, joyous and it embodied exactly who we are as a couple. She was the first and only officiant we met with. And after our initial meeting (over 2 hours of her getting to know us), we knew she was perfect for us. And she was! The whole process was fun and easy and personal. Sheila, thank you so much for making our day simply wonderful!”

Teri & Alex

“My wife and I are not religious at all, and initially we viewed our ceremony as a necessary formality. Our intention was to just find an officiant who would perform a simple quick service with just myself, my bride and our parents. To be frank, we wanted an officiant who would say the bare minimum required by law and then send us on our way. The "wedding", as we saw it, would be the reception that followed where both of our families would join us and celebrate. After just a few minutes on the phone with Sheila, we changed our minds. Truth be told, we could have listened to Sheila speak for hours. She got to know us ahead of our union and she put together a very personal ceremony that drew in ideas from a variety of different faiths. It is difficult to describe, but Sheila's ceremony spoke directly to us. It was meaningful, beautiful and genuine... There wasn't a dry eye in the room. So, to the point, I really can't recommend Sheila strongly enough. If you want a cookie cutter ceremony, look elsewhere. If you want a truly unique ceremony that speaks to the individuals involved and is delivered from the heart, your search ends here.”

Zach

“Sheila will make your day one of the most intimate, memorable days of your life. My husband and I both had been to those impersonal, boring, heavily religious, full of meaningless ritual weddings where you were struggling to stay awake through to the reception. Trust me, you will have none of this with Sheila. She finds out who you are, tells your story, involves your friends and family in the process, and keeps everyone completely engaged. We had friends and family there, gay, straight, Black, white, Hindu, Muslim, young and old, and she spoke to every one of them, never excluding, reaching out to them to support our union, letting them know just how important the community's love is in a marriage' s success. The ceremony became everyone's ceremony, she was just the facilitator. She made us all laugh, cry, and then laugh some more, and to this day, we still have friends saying our wedding was the best they'd ever attended(My Dad included!) Another year and some months later, Sheila has officiated another good friend's wedding and has become a friend to my husband and I. She is a jewel and I resoundingly recommend her.”

Alysha

“My oh my-how you do what you do... Reverend Sheila, you blew us away! Thank you-forever & Always! You are a gem! Our Wedding was as most will say, the most special day of our lives. The Bride married the Groom on her 45th birthday, her first time-what a gift! Our blessings are countless and we consider Reverand Sheila as one of them. Blessed to know this very special person, blessed even more to have been united in marriage by her. She met with us, she talked, she listened, she embraced us-she brought it all together as we knew (instantly) we could trust her to do so-so perfectly! Our family and friends were filled with tears of joy, smiles and happiness in their hearts, as they still speak of this most meaningful and unique Ceremony. They not only witnessed our love for one another as we joined together in marriage, but Reverend Sheila made each of them a comfortable part of the entire Ceremony. We can not imagine anything different, we had no expectations and yet-we really were blown away. The most wonderful way to begin our happily ever after. Grateful today, tomorrow and always!”

Teresa and Dave Gaboardi

“Where do I start? We can not thank you enough for EVERYTHING you have done for us. We just watched the video of the ceremony and were in tears only after a few minutes. You were incredible! I cant even put into words how we (and every guests at the wedding) felt about your beautiful words. You really did such an amazing job. We came home from our honeymoon last night to tons of emails from family and friends telling us how beautiful the ceremony was and how they have never been to one that meaningful and personal before. The entire ceremony was personalized and that is exactly what we wanted. We wanted to Sheila to make the entire ceremony about us, and she did just that and more. When we first met with Sheila she asked us when we both knew that we were the "one" for each other. We explained to her how my husband was in a horrible car accident a few years ago and spent almost 3 weeks in the hospital. During our ceremony she explained the story and spoke about at the moment, tragedy turned into love and hope. The guests at our wedding were in tears! Happy tears, that is :) Sheila was there for us whenever we needed her. She was extremely responsive to all of my emails and phone calls. We would talk about once or twice a month. She became not only our officiant, but a friend to us. We are so thankful to have found you. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK from the bottom of our hearts.”

Rebecca McDonald

“When we were thinking about our ideal wedding, we wanted it to be special and unique with personal touches. We had an idea of what our ceremony would look like, but we were willing to change if we found the right interfaith minister to change our minds. My husband and I did not have anybody to create and or run our ceremony. We happened to meet with two other ministers and they did not cut it for us. My mother actually found Sheila on the internet and was like why don't you try meeting with her. We said to each other it wont hurt. As soon as my husband and I met Sheila face to face and after talking with her for the first time we were moved and changed our minds very quickly and knew who we wanted to do our wedding ceremony. She not only created our ideal ceremony with us, but was willing to guide us and help us with whatever we needed along the way. She was always available to talk to about questions we had, and always tended to our every need. We had a great feeling that our ceremony was going to be one that could not be forgotten and it was proven true on our wedding day! Our guests family and friends that attended our wedding are still talking about our ceremony to this day and we cannot forget about it! It was truly the perfect ceremony and all the right touches and everything! Our wedding was on April 25, 2010 and I still keep in touch with Sheila to this day. If you want an awesome, amazing and personal ceremony this is the person to talk to! She is truly amazing in every way! We love you Sheila! Thank you again!”

Julie Aversa

“My husband and I are from two different faiths and really wanted a wedding ceremony that was about us and was warm and meaningful. From the first phone conversation I had with Sheila I knew she was the officiant we wanted to use. She went above and beyond our expectations and made time during the whole wedding planning process to sit down with us and really get to know our story. We had no idea what to expect but after speaking with her and having her there every step of the way we knew that this was going to be something so unique and special. I can't begin to explain how wonderful Sheila is. All I can say is that the ceremony we had was so far from ordinary and typical. Every single one of our guests said that it was so beautiful and they have never been to a wedding ceremony where they actually listened to what was said and weren't bored (We got married on July 4th and people are still commenting). She talked about my husband and I, how we met, funny stories, love stories, about our family and had some of our friends participate in the ceremony and speak. I think her ceremonies should be a standard for every wedding! She speaks to your guests and makes them feel like a part of what is happening and really takes it to such a personal place. She is great at reading the couples she is works with and creating something that is perfect for them and fits their personalities. I HIGHLY recommend her! If you can imagine the best wedding ceremony ever you still wouldn't come close to hers.”

Andrea

“My husband and I were recently married on July 17, 2010. The person we thought would officiate the ceremony could not and at the last minute (as in two weeks prior!), I had to begin my search for an officiant. I found Sheila on a website and read other reviews about her. Not wanting to throw all of my eggs in one basket, I made a note of her information and continued to search, but it brought me back to Sheila over and over as something wasn't quite right with others, and I just had a good vibe from her from our initial phone conversation. Sheila was so accommodating and honest, and that was what I most appreciated! She spoke with us, advised us, made time for us, answered every inquiry, even when I felt I was being a bug, she assured me I wasn't and anything I needed she was right there even though it was crunch time, but the most important thing was she gave us what we wanted. The ceremony was tailored and personalized to suit our spiritual needs and that meant everything to my husband and I. Her script was amazing, her professionalism outstanding, her price and value immeasurable! After the ceremony, many of those who attended asked how I found Sheila, complimented how wonderful the ceremony was and what a great job she did and I couldn't have been more pleased with the decision to have her as our officiant. Our wedding was small and intimate and it was the best day of my life to date, and I appreciate that Sheila contributed greatly to making it memorable. I hope my testimony will help others make their decision when searching for an officiant as it helped me. Thank you Sheila* I am happy to say my husband and I made a new friend in our search for an officiant. Forever grateful.”

Lesley

“When we were planning our wedding we wanted someone to marry us but make it special, something that everyone would remember. I spoke with a few ordained ministers but as soon as I spoke with Sheila I knew she was different. She met with me and my fiance and talked with us for at least 2hours. When we left our meeting we both knew she was the one to make it all happen. She was always available to speak with us and made us feel so at ease. Our wedding ceremony was unbelievable and truly unforgettable. She made it so personal and original, perfect for us! I still have people telling me how amazing our ceremony was. Our wedding was 8 months ago and I still keep in touch with Sheila. If you want your wedding ceremony to be amazing look no further! Sheila Gay Gross will make it happen.”

Kenda