We worked with Michelle to craft a script and general structure for our July 2023 wedding, and she helped my brother prepare for his role as our officiant. Michelle’s process was brilliant, and a perfect solution for us.

For us, the ceremony wasn’t a half-hour to “get through” - we wanted it to be the emotional climax of the weekend. But we knew it would be a challenge. My husband and I live in California, our wedding venue was in Rhode Island, and my brother (our officiant) lives in Connecticut. I’m Catholic, my husband is Jewish, and he’s a writer whose first instinct is to do everything himself - so we needed someone to marry all of this together and deliver a plan for the ceremony that would incorporate our traditions, capture us as individuals, and speak to our families and friends in a way that honored everyone and welcomed them into our story.

After our initial conversation with Michelle, she supplied us with a set of questions about ourselves: who we are as individuals, what we are like as a couple, and what we envision our marriage being like. They were perfectly-chosen questions, designed to get to know us on a deep level: my husband mentioned that it reminded him of the “36 questions that lead to love” - just answering them made us feel closer. After we sent our detailed responses, we had a virtual coffee with Michelle, and got to know her better (and vice versa) as we reviewed our answers.
Michelle is so welcoming and genuinely wanted to get to know us.

All of this was great, but the most important part came next: Michelle wove together what we’d written and told her - our story, our hopes, our traditions, our preferences for the flow of the wedding (including lots of ideas we wouldn’t have thought of, and can’t thank her enough for) - into a script for the ceremony. We made some minor changes and added some readings as the day approached, and Michelle met with my brother virtually to work through some of his questions (and honestly, his fears) about officiating. And finally, Michelle read over my vows and reassured me when I was nervous about what I’d written!

In the end, the ceremony was absolutely incredible: I’m biased, but so many people told us that they’d never been so moved, or laughed and cried as much during a wedding ceremony. It wouldn’t have been possible without Michelle. We can’t thank her enough, and highly recommend her work!

If you're planning a wedding, the best advice I can give you is working with Michelle for your ceremony. We wanted to have someone close to us officiate our wedding, but we weren't sure we wanted to put the burden of writing a whole ceremony on a friend. We also wanted to make sure that the ceremony was an important and significant part of the day, which isn't always the case in other weddings we attended. As soon as I heard about Swoon Union, I thought this could be the perfect solution - and one conversation with Michelle made it obvious. (And if we didn't want to have a friend officiate, she would have been amazing herself!)

Truly, the ceremony was PERFECT. Every guest came up to us and told us that it was the most personal and beautiful ceremony they had ever witnessed. The tears flowed throughout - we were basically sobbing through our vows, and there was not a dry eye in the house. (Her vow guidance was extremely helpful...we used her templates to come up with our own template). A friend described it as "funeral level tears" - but in a good way! Someone else described it as "the most cathartic wedding ever." People told us that it allowed them to get to know both of us better - which was exactly what we wanted. And our friend who officiated ended up looking like a brilliant genius - she got compliments all night.

One bonus was the process itself. Michelle's questionnaire was a lovely moment in wedding planning to pause and reflect on our relationship, what we love about each other and our plans for the future.

We loved working with Michelle and can't recommend the Swoon Union experience enough!

Michelle is an incredible person to work with if you want support in designing the ceremony of your dreams. My husband and I knew we didn't want the traditional ceremony language so we worked with Michelle to gather ideas for how we wanted to conduct our ceremony. In an hour she helped us understand different formats, identify key stories we wanted to include, and shape the flow of our ceremony. Her questionnaire alone is an amazing resource in helping your identify what you really want to highlight during the ceremony. 10/10 recommend Michelle and absolutely loved her insights and help leading up to our celebration.