Zach crafted an absolutely beautiful ceremony for our Maine wedding in October 2025. So many of our guests told us it was one of the best ceremonies they had ever witnessed. Zach turned our stories and histories into a narrative that captured our love for each other perfectly. His process included us at every step of the way, and we were able to review his drafts well in advance. He was very receptive to feedback and requests, and asked great questions about our families and traditions to make sure we were considering all our options. The result was a thoughtful, loving, fun, and engaging ceremony that we will treasure always.

We are both Catholic by birth but agnostic in practice, with friends of all major religions. It was important to us that our ceremony not be religious - but we wanted our loved ones to feel comfortable and familiar with the process and language. Zach suggested we include the sign of the peace, part of the Catholic Mass where guests shake hands and wish each other well. It was a beautiful moment in the ceremony to see folks who didn’t know each other reach across the aisle and connect.

Zach has a very comforting and calming presence. It’s clear he has a deep love of community and bringing people together, and he’s quite skilled at both public speaking and writing. Zach also left a gorgeous copy of our ceremony and vows with our card basket, giving us the chance to read over everything again later on. Such a kind gesture.

If you're considering Zach as your officiant, I highly recommend him!

We started working with Zach just over a month before our wedding. He flexibly accommodated our tight schedule while putting together a wonderful, deeply meaningful ceremony for my now-husband and I. Zach is up front about his process, where he guides couples through a lengthy questionnaire and then uses their own words to create a rendering of their love story that forms a key part of the ceremony. Even though I knew this is what we had signed up for, experiencing Zach's thoughtful integration and re-weaving of our words was incredibly powerful, a clear example of the whole being more than the parts. Zach handled the complexity and some genuine awkwardness of our story with grace, and our guests in the audience who had been there for the awkwardness were extremely impressed with how well he balanced sharing meaningful details without getting bogged down. On the whole I would say Zach is impressively comfortable working with different elements of ceremony from a range of spiritual traditions. He was also great at getting on the same page with us about our values and priorities, and he brought at healthy theatrical touch to his performance. He clearly has a solid understanding of his role as a celebrant/officiant, and I would recommend him to anyone looking for a way to bring a sense of personal or spiritual meaning to their ceremony without necessarily wanting to follow a specific religious format.

My wife and I have had the pleasure of working with Zach a few times over the years while photographing elopements on the Oregon Coast. He’s the first officiant I recommend when asked by my wedding clients. When we first met Zach we both felt at ease with him and loved his calm, welcoming presence. When it came time to plan our wedding, we knew exactly who we wanted to marry us. Having a professional celebrant/officiant was so worth it. We met with Zach early on to talk about what we were looking for and completed some questionnaires to give him a better sense of our stories. He then created several drafts for us to review which led to a ceremony that was just perfect. We received so many compliments about Zach and our family and friends loved how much of our relationship story was included in the ceremony. We truly couldn’t have asked for anything better.

I can not put into words how EASY Zach made getting married. Having to plan my own wedding I needed someone who could handle the legal papers and the whole actually getting married part. The way he portrayed our story and led our ceremony was beautiful and heartfelt. I got comments that guests had never seen a ceremony like it. I couldn't have asked for better!

Zachary was amazing. He sent us an in-depth questionnaire to get to know us better and then created our beautiful ceremony. He truly has a gift in writing. We didn’t want the same old wedding ceremony and he delivered. If your looking for someone to share your story and make your ceremony real and authentic, choose Old Ways. You won’t regret it.

Zachary with Old Ways Ceremonies created a beautiful and personalized wedding ceremony for my wife and I. We hired Zachary a few months before our wedding when we realized that we needed a professional to help us design our wedding ceremony and to serve as a celebrant. Zachary immediately started talking with us to help us determine the elements that we wanted to include in our ceremony. He worked with us to draft a meaningful and carefully-worded program and he deftly included cultural elements like a blessing and a Filipino cord and veil ceremony to our wedding ceremony. When we had to change our entire wedding venue days before the ceremony due to the heat wave, Zachary was flexible and helped to ensure that our wedding ceremony proceeded as planned. I cannot recommend Old Ways Ceremonies enough for couples seeking to honor their cultural or familial heritage in their wedding celebrations. Our guests gave us many compliments about how beautiful the ceremony was and that it felt authentic, not scripted.

Zach was really helpful with putting together our wedding ceremony. I really didn't know what to include and he made this process easy and fun. He did an amazing job speaking during our ceremony and making sure everything was going according to plan. I highly recommend his service!

My husband and I were married in August 2020. The first officiant we met with after getting engaged was Zach and we knew after that meeting that he was who we wanted to officiate our wedding. We completed two separate questionnaires and our ceremony was tailored to us – which made the entire experience much more special. The few attendees at our wedding (thanks to Covid) all commented on how unique the ceremony was and how it was perfect for the two of us. We aren’t very traditional, so customizing the entire ceremony the way Zach did made it much more memorable and allowed us to be comfortable during the entire process. It wasn’t a “cookie cutter” ceremony like most weddings tend to be. Zach also reviewed and gave us suggestions for our vows, which for two engineers who aren’t the best with words, was EXTREMELY helpful. Zach worked very hard on the little details – he also helped us by controlling the music as I walked down the aisle! We’ve watched our wedding video multiple times and every time, we comment on how hiring Zach from Old Ways Ceremonies was such a great decision. He helped make our day extra special in a time where everything seemed to add some sort of complication to our day. We would highly recommend Zach from Old Ways Ceremonies!

My partner and I booked Zach for our elopement after hours of research. We loved Zach's approach; calm, cool and collected with flair. We chose to keep our ceremony verbiage secret, we were so surprised, enlightened and awed by Zach's ability to curate a magical ceremony. He made us laugh, cry (happy tears!) and genuinely smile throughout this meaningful ceremony. He did such an amazing job, I would recommend him to anyone that wants to feel all the feels on their wedding day!

2020 wasn't exactly the best year to pick for a wedding. But Zach helped us make lemonade out of a pile of lemons. True to form for us, our general procrastination and the evolving covid guidance left us with no firm plans in the 2.5 weeks before a summer date we had set. Any rationale person would have laughed at our pathetic attempt at wedding planning, but Zach rose to the challenge when we contacted him. He took the time to talk us through the process, understand our casual and non-traditional vision- all while getting to know us, and learning what makes our relationship tick. When reading the first draft of our ceremony, it was as though he had been a close friend who had been right there with us at ever turn in our relationship. It brought us to tears and filled us with laughter. Zach is truly gifted when it comes to crafting a ceremony- it is genuine and personable.  He made our tiny last-minute backyard covid elopement an amazing event. We can't thank him enough for helping us put one very happy memory in the books for 2020!