Church of Ancient Ways

This review is long over due, I'm a June bride but I've been so busy that I didn't have to chance to write one but Pastor April did such an amazing job that I have to give her a review. She's so amazing and easy to work with. Whenever I emailed her the day didn't go by without me getting a response. I was kind of bummed that my husband and I couldn't really have our ceremony in a church due to certain circumstance and I felt having a outside ceremony wouldn't really come to par with what I dreamed of but Pastor April changed all that. I was very precise about how I wanted the ceremony and to weave in our Filipino culture and wedding traditions within the religious ceremony and she just created such a lovely outline for me. Until now my family and guest compliment me on how beautifully our ceremony was captured in film and in real life. Pastor April, Id like to thank you for making my wedding planning a breeze. You are truly a delight to work with and I'm sure you will continue to create more priceless memories for couples to come. ( Jackie and Ron - Westbury Manor )

My wife and I found April on a recommendation from our caterer. She was very pleasant and responsive to our needs. She sat with us and listened to our story and was ale to capture the essence of our relationship. She provided us with a ceremony that was very personalized for us and also gave use the opportunity to tailor it to our exact desire. We made some changes to personalize what she had written including writing our own vows. I would highly recommend April whether you wanted a religious or secular ceremony. Dan

April was amazing!! She met with us before hand to talk about what exactly we wanted our ceremony to be like, to sound like and to feel like. We had a very intimate ceremony so we felt the officiant was an integral part of our wedding day. She far exceeded our expectations! Once you talk to her, you will see that her energy will bring sincere positivity to your special day!

April Gismondi at the Church of Ancient Ways was absolutely wonderful to work with from day one. She custom-wrote two full ceremonies for us - our legal civil ceremony which was held privately, and our unity ceremony which was held during the larger reception - after spending nearly 2 hours talking with us to get to know us individually and as a couple and to learn our interests and values. She really listened to us and worked hard to make sure our ceremonies would be meaningful and thoughtful and would achieve exactly what we envisioned, despite our unconventional approach. She even helped us put together a truly unique-to-us unity ceremony in which we combined 8 spices to make a custom blend, aligning the spices to the four elements through traditional symbolism and spoken pledges offered by several of our closest friends. We got so many compliments on our spice ceremony - all of our guests recognized how much of us was in it, and we never would have gotten there without her insight and creativity in putting it all together. She also officiated our legal ceremony and was warm, down-to-earth, and genuine with a healthy sense of humor - our nearest and dearest who attended had so many kind words afterward. She made everyone feel calm and welcome and was so excited for us that it just felt like having another member of the family there! Afterward she followed up with an email giving us tracking info for our marriage license, and provided links and instructions for handling my name change, which was super-helpful. April clearly loves what she does, and it makes all the difference. I would recommend her to anyone looking to do something truly special for your wedding!

Pastor April was wonderful. She was thorough and supported us through out the entire process. Everyone kept approaching us at our Wedding Reception telling us how touching, and special our ceremony was. We were all so impressed with Pastor April. Highly, HIGHLY recommend. She's amazing. You can tell she loves her job and treats each occasion as it is supposed to be... unique and special.