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Janet Shortall
Janet Shortall
Stylish couple
Stylish couple
Chapel wedding
Chapel wedding
Sunset wedding
Sunset wedding
Groom and bride
Groom and bride
The whole family
The whole family
Beautiful light
Beautiful light
UU Chalice necklace
UU Chalice necklace
Off the beaten path
Off the beaten path
Wedding bouquet
Wedding bouquet
Ceremony proper
Ceremony proper
Celebrating heritages
Celebrating heritages
Sweetheart table
Sweetheart table
The look of summer
The look of summer
Sharing an umbrella
Sharing an umbrella
On the dock
On the dock
Wedding with a view
Wedding with a view
Wedding cake
Wedding cake

Interested in this vendor?

Janet Shortall

About

Janet Shortall Weddings is a wedding officiant based in Ithaca, New York. Janet Shortall is a licensed wedding officiant that performs wedding ceremonies in the Ithaca, Syracuse, and Finger Lakes area. Janet brings 25 years of experience in creating customized wedding ceremonies that are as unique as her clients’ relationships, and she will help you to create a thoughtful wedding ceremony that expresses your deepest values, beliefs, aspirations, and love for one another.

Services Offered

Janet Shortall Weddings performs customized wedding ceremonies for couples in the New York area. Janet has worked with couples across the globe, creating personalized wedding ceremonies that are tailored to fit each and every distinctive relationship. She loves to incorporate your friends and family in your ceremony, allowing you to celebrate your ties of kinship and love with all of your life’s important figures in your declaration of commitment. She also offers premarital counseling, and services religious affiliations including Buddhist, Agnostic, Jewish, Earth-based, Quaker, Unitarian, and Pagan religions. She also provides non-denominational officiant services, and ultimately strives to create a wedding ceremony that reflects your individual beliefs, values, and relationship. She provides officiant services for the following ceremony types:

  • Non-religious
  • Interfaith
  • Ceremony rehearsal
  • Vow renewal
  • Civil union
  • Single religion
illustration popular

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Frequently asked questions

Which of the following are included in the price of your wedding officiant services?

Ceremony Rehearsal

Does starting price include the ceremony rehearsal?

No

What is the starting price for ceremony rehearsals?

$50

What is the starting price for pre-marital counseling (per session)?

$50

What types of weddings and events do you provide services for?

Non-religious
Interfaith
Ceremony Rehearsal
Vow Renewal
Civil Union

What services do you provide?

Premarital Counseling

What religious affiliations do you serve?

Agnostic
Buddhist
Earth-Based
Jewish
No Denomination
Pagan
Quaker
Unitarian

On average, how long are wedding ceremonies you officiate?

Less than 30 mins.

In which states are you licensed?

NY

What languages do you speak?

English

Reviews of Janet Shortall

Write a review
Write a review
Janet Shortall - 1
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+8 User photos
Janet Shortall - 4
NancyZumpano
Nancyzumpano Sent on 02/01/2025
5 out of 5 rating

I am a wedding photographer and have worked with Janet on a couple of weddings.

Janet consistently brings a joy and kindness to her couples, their families and their celebrations that always stand out as exceptional. Janet's ceremonies are meaningful and memorable! She is an absolute pleasure to work with!
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William Sent on 11/11/2022
5 out of 5 rating

Janet is such an amazing wedding officiant!

My wife and I got married in Ithaca in July 2022, and Janet came recommend to us by our wedding venue. We reached out to her over a year prior to our wedding, and she quickly responded and asked to set up a video chat (as we don’t live locally). Right from the start we felt so comfortable with Janet, and we knew we wanted to ask her if she would be our wedding officiant. We could not have asked for a better human to make our wedding so special. She was (is) so kind and thoughtful, and helped make our wedding ceremony feel so personal and intimate to who we are as a couple. We had several opportunities to connect via Zoom leading up to the wedding, and she provided so many great suggestions and ideas to include based on what we wanted the ceremony to be. We are so fortunate the Janet was able to be such an important part of our day. If you are looking for an officiant for a wedding in the Ithaca area, we can’t recommend Janet enough!
K
Kayla Sent on 09/05/2022
5 out of 5 rating

Exceptional officiant

We had a wonderful experience working with Janet. Through our conversations before the wedding, she really distilled what was important to us and transformed it to a ceremony that was deeply meaningful. Janet brought both a gravity and a lightheartedness to our wedding and really helped to keep us centered. We appreciate her encouragement to involve members of our family in the ceremony, and we love how the personal reflections she asked us to write were incorporated to make our ceremony really unique to us.

After the ceremony, multiple people came up to us to say that it was the best ceremony they had ever attended. I can wholeheartedly say that working with Janet was an absolute gift and we will treasure her words for a lifetime!
M
Maria Sent on 08/29/2021
5 out of 5 rating

Perfect ceremony

Janet helped us make our small ‘elopement’ wedding a special and in all ways perfect experience. She was very flexible in accommodating our wishes, suggesting venues, and putting together a lovely ceremony at very short notice, happily incorporating any changes we had, and was great at putting our kids (and us) at ease.
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Erika Sent on 07/08/2021
5 out of 5 rating

Wonderful Officiant

Janet is a truly wonderful person. We were so happy to have her as our wedding officiant. From our first conversation with her we instantly connected and felt her calming energy and welcoming personality. She asked each of us a series of questions to learn about our relationship and life and wove our stories into beautiful words for our ceremony. Our guests (especially our parents) really enjoyed her. She gave options for the exchanging of rings and readings. Janet was also responsive and quick to work with us on rescheduling as we worked through postponing our wedding during the pandemic.
Lindsay
Lindsay Sent on 06/17/2021
5 out of 5 rating

Beautiful ceremony!

I would recommend Janet to anyone. She made our day special and worked with us to make sure the ceremony was perfect. She takes the time to get to know you and works that into the ceremony. Our family and friends loved her! Thank you Janet for being there and helping us through all our emotions on our wedding day! We will never forget how special you made us both feel!
  • Janet Shortall - 9
Kevin
Kevin Sent on 08/05/2020
5 out of 5 rating

Thoughtful, professional, personable, flexible, and so kind!

My fiance and I worked with Janet on elopement plans after our original wedding plans were scrapped due to the pandemic and we had to consider other cities. We decided to be 'nimble' for our little outdoors micro-elopement, which meant making late decisions about time, date, and location based on the weather. It took months for things to line up correctly to make it all happen, and Janet stuck with us throughout and was supremely calm, patient, and understanding of our situation. (Not only that, but she did some location scounting for us as well, since we were not local to the area!)

Janet's kind, calming, and supportive style was the perfect fit for us. She helped us shape the ceremony to make it personally meaningful and to incorporate our families in it (distant as they had to be).

Highest possible recommendation. Janet is all of the things I cited in my review title-- thoughtful, professional, personable, flexible, and so kind!
Meagan
Meagan Sent on 09/26/2019
5 out of 5 rating

Got so many compliments on ceremony!

Janet was awesome! Our ceremony was everything personalized, and everything we wanted., including laughs. We have received many compliments on the ceremony. Would highly recommend working with Janet if you want something personal that celebrates you in the way that you want. THANK YOU Janet!
G
Gretchen Sent on 01/11/2019
5 out of 5 rating

Celebrating us as a couple

Working with Janet was a joy, both for the process of planning the service and for hearing during the service how she sees us as a couple. She helped us quickly plan an informal backyard wedding when DOMA was repealed, and added the appropriate gravitas to our day.

Janet's work is intimate. She notices the little things that are just so important, and is able to encapsulate a couple's true nature so well. Her attention to the present also helped to roll with the punches during our ceremony, when our 3-year old twins were adding their own thoughts to the ceremony!
H
Hannah Sent on 01/10/2019
5 out of 5 rating

Wonderful Officiant, Wonderful Person

Janet Shortall officiated our wedding in 2008 and it was a truly wonderful experience. She personalized our vows in such a touching way and helped us to include our families and friends through innovative elements, like a ring blessing - which I will never forget! Through that experience, we wanted Janet to be part of our future major life events, because of her exuberant, kind, and compassionate demeanor and approach. She offered a naming ceremony for our baby, which was also very touching and personal. She is also very flexible - in this case we held the ceremony at a beautiful chapel on campus. She very thoughtfully included our daughter in the ceremony as well. In 2018, Janet renewed our wedding vows in a very small and casual ceremony that was just perfect, a reflection of our original vows and a conversation about our dedication to our marriage. To me, each of these very different events showcase her flexibility and dedication to overseeing major life events in very personal ways, tailoring her role to perfectly suit the people involved. She understands the gravity of these moments - she gets it! And she has a really lovely presence, welcoming all and making everyone comfortable. As officiants go, I think she is very rare in her dedication to diversity and inclusion, and she really shines in this regard. Basically, I can't recommend her enough!
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Awards

28
WeddingWire Couples' Choice Awards 2020 Winner
WeddingWire Couples' Choice Awards 2019 Winner

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