Ceremonies For Sacred Days Reviews
Reviews
5.0 out of 5 rating
5.0 out of 5 rating
186 Reviews
99% recommend it
Awards
-
![Ashwin]()
Ashwin K. Sent on 12/19/2019A warm, thoughtful partner in our ceremony
Shyamala officiated our wedding and did a terrific job. When we first reached out to Shyamala, she set up time with us to learn about our family's customs, how we wanted to modernize them, and how it would influence her narrative. In a timely manner, she produced a draft of her speech and collaborated with us on weaving it into the ceremony's timeline of events. During the ceremony, Shyamala did a great job to make us feel comfortable in the moment. We'd highly recommend her as an officiant. -
![Jane]()
Jane Sent on 12/17/2019Excellent writer, listener, and orator
Shyamala helped make our big day unforgettable. She listened to our needs and crafted a ceremony that truly reflected us and our story. Our guests were blown away by the ceremony, with personal rituals like a "ring warming" that was unforgettable! She was wonderful! -
-
![Andrea]()
Andrea M. Sent on 12/20/2019Shyamala made our day perfect!!
When we met Shyamala, we knew immediately she was the right person to marry us. She has a warm, calming presence that set the tone perfectly for our ceremony, and put my now husband and I at ease. She is such a lovely and genuine person. She was super easy to work with and had lots of great ideas. She took the time to get to know us so it didn't feel like we were getting married by a stranger, but more like a friend. We didn't realize it at the time, but Shyamala had married two of my friends within the last 7 or 8 years. She recognized them in the crowd during the wedding. THAT'S how much of a connection she makes with her couples. And they were just as happy with her as we were. Book her early though--she's very popular and in high demand! -
![Kay]()
Kay J. Sent on 12/18/2019Beautiful Day!
Shyamala was just a delight! She helped us with all the out-of-state information we needed and was very flexible about accommodating us with time, licensing, etc. The ceremony was just beautiful and was everything we hoped for. She is wonderfully inspirational and knew just how to make our wedding day special. We hope to go to her for a renewal day. She is very special. -
-
![Brooke]()
Brooke Sent on 12/20/2022Wonderful from start to finish
My partner and I worked with Shyamala in the creation of our recent wedding ceremony. Working with Shyamala was a total pleasure from start to finish. She is a very special person, who makes you feel cherished and held as a couple. We wanted an intentional, customized wedding ceremony, but didn’t have the time or expertise to create it ourselves from scratch. Over our Zoom sessions, she made the effort to get to know us as a couple, our personal backgrounds and the story of how we came together. She provided us with many different ideas for meaningful rituals that we could incorporate into our ceremony. She has gathered many different readings on love. We read through them and then chose one that spoke to us. Using the pieces that we discussed in our sessions and her own beautiful writing, Shyamala composed a bespoke and meaningful ceremony for us. We had some things we wanted to add or clarify in the editing process and Shyamala was very open to making changes.
Shyamala worked closely with our chosen officiant through Zoom sessions and email. Our officiant said that she felt very supported and therefore capable to lead the wedding ceremony–something she had never done before. In the end, all the pieces came together beautifully. We felt great about how it turned out and we also received many comments on how personalized and special it was. We can’t thank Shyamala enough for her support in making this a reality!
We are an LGBTQ couple and we felt very seen and loved while working with Shyamala.
-
![Sudhir]()
Sudhir S. Sent on 12/08/2019She made our wedding ceremony a memorable one!
Simply put, we were lucky to have found Shyamala to be our wedding officiant! We wanted to do something simple and the court seemed like an obvious choice. However, fate intervened and we were forced to find a place to get married over a weekend. And our internet search brought us to Ceremonies for Sacred Days and Shyamala. It was like finding a major upgrade from mundane to something very special!
Shyamala has all the personality traits you would want in a wedding officiant. She is thoughtful, articulate, well-read, and clearly well-traveled! Add to this her experience of nearly 600 weddings and professionalism and you have got yourself a true Master of the Ceremony.
My wife and I chose the elopement package. We were to be wed in her backyard winter garden, however, it rained and Shyamala was kind enough to open her living room to us. The words she spoke were touching and beautiful! The ceremony was such a treat!
Tip: Go prepared with a plan on how you want to make a video or take pictures. We were a little under-prepared and Shyamala made some adjustments for us so that we could rest our camera on a table to record the video. Buy or borrow a tripod that fits your camera/phone so you can capture the special moments without any worry. -
![Sunita]()
Sunita K. Sent on 12/31/2018Truly empathetic and creative officiant
Shyamala was a truly great officiant, weaving together our personal stories and incorporating both American and Indian elements into a beautiful City Hall ceremony. She was extremely flexible with our timeline and content and we loved her ideas for how to make our ceremony special. -
![Jonas]()
Jonas Sent on 12/23/2018Heart, soul and 'real' - the best officiant you could ask for!
Shyamala was absolutely great to work with! We talked to 4 different officiants before our wedding and she was certainly the most "real" and sincere one. You can tell she truly loves what she is doing and puts all her heart and soul into it.
She took a lot of time to get to know us and our story. That allowed her to customize the ceremony to our needs and make it in a very personal manner. We felt that a lot of the other officiants have their standard agenda that they do and are not willing to change it up much.
But Shyamala wrote a ceremony that was tailored to us. She allowed us to provide enough input and always guided us effectively. We loved that perfect balance of being open to our ideas but also ensuring that the whole ceremony would work out as a whole.
Our guests loved the ceremony and some asked if she was a friend of ours since she put so much heart and warmth in it. We couldn't have been more happy with choosing her! -
![Brittany]()
Brittany Sent on 12/06/2018Amazing officiant!
We first heard of Shyamala through our wedding planner since we were having a Napa Valley destination wedding and are originally from Boston. We relied a lot on recommendations from our planner as she had worked with many vendors and was more familiar with the area then we were. When researching Shyamala, the first thing we did was listen to a video she had posted on her website. We absolutely fell in love with her voice – there is just something so calming and soft about it – that we knew we had to speak with her. Knowing that we would both be filled with nerves and anxiety on the big day it was important we felt calm with our officiant during the ceremony. We quickly booked a phone conversation with her (no video chat or Skype) and in the first five minutes we spoke we knew she was the perfect fit for us!
Since we were from Boston, we wanted to meet her in person at least once before our September wedding so we mentioned we would be flying out to Napa for some wedding events (food tasting, cake tasting, etc) in February and she offered us over to her home for coffee and cookies (so sweet)! We met with her for an hour and just talked as she got to know us as a couple and our journey together over the last 10 years. After we left we just felt even more validated that we chose the perfect person to officiate our wedding.
Our wedding in September was a dream come true and the ceremony was absolutely perfect!! Shyamala did such an amazing job that we actually had several guests come up to us throughout the evening and still to this day comment about how great of a job she did and how it was one of the best wedding ceremonies they’ve ever seen!
If you’re in search of an officiant in the Napa/Northern Cali area please do yourself a favor and book Shyamala – you will not be disappointed!! -
![Erin]()
Erin G. Sent on 12/10/2018Amazing Officiant experience!!!
Shyamala was absolutely amazing at our wedding! We could not have been happier! Finding the perfect officiant was very important to us. We wanted someone who would take the time to get to know us and our story and make the ceremony personal- and Shyamala did exactly that. She was even more amazing than we could have asked for. She reached out to us several times and truly got to know us and our love story. The ceremony was so personal and she made it exactly what we dreamed of. Not to mention that after the wedding, so many of our guests told us how personable Shyamala was with them prior to the ceremony. She engaged with the guests and made them laugh and feel welcome to the ceremony.
We 100% recommend Shyamala for your wedding ceremony. She will spend time to get to know you and create the ceremony exactly how YOU want (she will even ask you questions you had not thought about yet and set your mind at ease).
-
![Jodi]()
Jodi C. Sent on 12/19/2018Perfect Fit for Our Special Day
We found Shyamala while looking on line at the Knot website. Shyamala was listed as "the best of", so we contacted her to see if she would be a fit for the ceremony we wanted. We did a Skype meeting and had an initial discussion with her. After we met, we knew she would be a perfect fit for our wedding. We told Shyamala "our story" and she cleverly inserted the story into our ceremony. She provided excellent references for us to chose from and modify so that we could make the ceremony unique to us. The references included sample vows and ring exchange statements as well as quotations and poems. When working on our ceremony together, we enjoyed the flexibility of her schedule to meet with us on Skype during the evening hours and weekends. After the ceremony, we received several comments from our family and wedding guests who said that they really enjoyed the ceremony. Shyamala was the "perfect fit" for our wedding. -
Johanna Sent on 12/11/2017Thanks for everything, Shyamala. The ceremony was lovingly personal and your words were deeply touching. I can never thank you enough for making our wedding so special!
-
Are you interested?
Send a message
Are you interested?
Send a message