Have you ever attended a wedding, where after the ceremony you thought  “How does the officiant know  them so well?” or even said aloud, “That was the best wedding ceremony I’ve ever been to”?  No? That’s because you’ve never been the guest at one of my weddings.  It is likely that not only have you never enjoyed sitting through someone else’s wedding ceremony, but that it’s actually been a chore!  Most would rather poke out an eye...

Long before it became “a thing” and 18 years ago, I was asked by a friend to become an online ordained minister, so that I could marry her and her fiancé and their ceremony would be personal, and fun, warm and meaningful.  She had consulted with many officiants and not finding what she was looking for.  I had planned to attend her wedding as a guest anyway, I had always been a performer of sorts and very comfortable in front of a crowd, and I was funny and warm…so sure, I said, why not?! 
 
When I arrived at the site for rehearsal that fateful evening months later, I was handed a script.  The ceremony she had cut and pasted from the Internet could not have been more simple.  It took about three minutes for me to read through.  On paper, it was the furthest thing from personal, funny, warm or even meaningful that one could imagine.  There wasn’t even a reading! Clearly, what my friend wanted existed somewhere between those lines.
 
The following day, as I stood with my friend and her fiancé under a canopy of flowers and with their loved ones waiting on my delivery, I was overcome with the weight and the feeling of the moment we were all in.  During their ceremony, I did not actually depart much from the words on the pages I held in my hands.  Yet, knowing my friends as well as I did and understanding that they wanted their ceremony to reflect who they were while capturing all the love and feeling around them, I delivered much more than words on a page.  And yeah, I may have added a personal remark or two.

My passion for people and their love stories quickly spread by word of mouth in wedding circles and destinations in the Newport and Providence areas.  I spent the next decade meeting with couples who came to me not knowing at all what they wanted included in their ceremonies, just what they didn’t – boring, impersonal, focused on merely checking the traditional boxes and meaningless prose.  I sat with some couples for hours – teasing out their wedding day plans, their histories, their love stories, and their visions for a future together, because it seemed so natural for me to do my work this way and the only way to craft a ceremony that would not only be for  them but all about  them. 
 
With each passing season, I’ve become only more passionate about my work creating ceremonies that are specific to couples I meet with.  Even if I’ve heard more than 400 love stories (and I have!), every one of them is delightful and unique, each deserving to be told, and shared with family and friends in a way that will be remembered and enjoyed as much as the reception and the after party to follow. 
 
If you want to get to know me better and think  I might be the one to give  you the meaningful and memorable ceremony you didn’t even know you could have, then please visit my “Services” page and contact me in any of the ways provided.
 
Good luck and always happiness and love in your future together!

                                                                         Best,

                                                                         Danna Spencer

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