Meg's Ceremonies

Sacramento Area Officiant
Funeral Celebrant

Bringing Meaning to Non-Religious Ceremonies

Davis, CA and Beyond

Specializing in non-traditional, thoughtful, handcrafted ceremonies written with care for every turning point in your life.

Helping the Earth by helping my clients find more sustainable ways to celebrate. Including 1% of my fees donated to onetreeplanted.org

Contact me for a no obligation consultation:

meggurley@megsceremonies.com

203-464-2484 (text or call)

"...you made our day what it was! The ceremony was so special and unforgettable because of your dedication and love..." G.

(Photo courtesy of Darby Johnson Photography)

Your Story

As a Certified Life-Cycle Celebrant®, I have been educated and trained in the art of telling a story through ceremony from beginning to end. Wedding, Coming of Age, Celebration of Life, Pet Funeral? I will help you tell your story.

Contact me to schedule a free, no obligation consultation and learn what we can create together.

Interested in learning more about Life-Cycle Celebrants®?

http://www.celebrantinstitute.org/

I bring over 30 years of experience working with people; as a registered nurse, a teacher, a volunteer coordinator and a mom.

Home: Event Services

Co-Creation

We will first speak on the phone to get some logistics and preliminary questions answered. Then, we will schedule a no obligation interview where we will discuss your vision of the ceremony. Lastly, if you wish to engage my services, you are given a questionnaire. With your answers I will begin to craft your ceremony.
Although I will write the ceremony and guide you, you have the final say on the wording and what is included. It is YOUR ceremony.
(Photo courtesy of Brandi Rollins https://www.brandirollinsphotography.com/)

Ceremonies

Weddings and Renewal of Vows

Child Celebrations: Baby Blessings, Namings and Adoption Ceremonies

Coming-of-Age Ceremonies and Milestone Birthdays

New Business Openings

Pet Funerals

Any life event you wish to honor

What I Believe

I believe that EVERYONE deserves to have their story told in a safe and loving way. We all should be honored from time to time because our lives are unique.

Are you funny? Shy? Joyful? Exuberant? Quiet?

Your personality should shine through your celebration.

I love the earth and all of its inhabitants. If you would like ideas on how to have a green(er) ceremony, I can help.

Above Left Liz Zimbelman Photography https://lizzimbelman.com/

Above Right Rosely Vue Photography

Below Left Friend of the Family Below Center Brandon Scott brandonscottphoto.co/ Below Right Beth Baugher truelovephoto.com

A Few Sustainable Ideas

There are many ways to make your event "greener".

Here are just a few.

Even changing one thing helps!

Find a venue that is central to you and your guests to decrease travel.
Use florists who use local flowers and do not use floral foam.
Use caterers who use organic, local products when available.
Look into rings that are made with sustainable gold, wood or buy an heirloom. Want something permanent? What about a tattoo?
Buy a consigned dress and/or consign yours.

Contact me if you would like to learn more.

“Meg spoke with us over the phone, in person, and via email. She asked us a number of questions to get to know us as a couple. Meg made sure she understood what were looking for and personalized our service to fit us. She was very easy to work with and helped make out special day memorable. It was the easiest part of our wedding. “

Keri and Matt

Meg was fantastic from our first video call until the day of our ceremony!

Never did we doubt the process of creating our ceremony with her: she took the utmost care to refine every detail and collaborated with us each step of the way. It was the perfect balance of sentiment and humor and the way Meg delivered the ceremony was personal and engaging – we got so many compliments on it (and on her) afterwards!

Thank you so much for creating the foundation for what was an amazing day and evening – we are truly grateful and will never forget it!

Jen and Gregg

Meg was amazing, and I cannot recommend her enough. From our first meeting, she was a breath of fresh air and a source of tranquility during the stress of wedding planning. Other officiants were pushy, but Meg had a very casual, relaxed business pitch, and we are so glad we picked her!

Our families have different religious backgrounds, and we are more spiritual. Meg handled our differences perfectly! Everyone, from my skeptical cousin to his very conservative and devout parents LOVED Meg. We recieved so many compliments on the ceremony, and it was all Meg! Meg provided the right amount of guidance and selected wonderful readings that fit us perfectly. I am so happy with our ceremony, and the bound copy she provided us will be a lifelong memento.

I will be forever grateful to Meg for talking me through from some very stressful moments. Our wedding plans changed a lot with the COVID-19 crisis, and knowing that our actual marriage would happen meant the world to me. Meg performed a safe, socially distanced ceremony for us this year, and we plan to hire her again to conduct a vow renewal for all the friends and family who couldn't be there due to the crisis.

We are so happy she was part of our ceremony, and we cannot recommend Meg enough.

Jasmine and Yuri

Meg is an awesome choice for a officiant! She’s kind and and professional but also makes you feel like you’re part of her family. The way she told the love story of my husband and I at our wedding was so beautiful. She made it just about Our commitment to each other. Felt very special and intimate. She also has great ideas if you want to add special unity ceremonies or If you want to include family members, anything else you need help with Shes 100% supportive. She really helped us have our dream wedding. I highly recommend hiring her!

Samantha and John

Meg was an absolute pleasure to work with for our last minute COVID wedding! She was incredible during our super tight timeline (2 weeks!) and was super on top of everything and very organized. She was great with giving reminders and encouragement for all of the thing we needed to get done. She truly went above and beyond and even provided some decor options for the ceremony that we were lacking. We loved that we were able to collaborate fully in writing the ceremony through a shared Google doc and she made us feel very comfortable a reassured that we would have complete control over how the ceremony turned out, which was very important to us. Even our guests told us that they thought she did a great job with the ceremony!

Hannah and Stephen

Thank you for capturing our story as our officiant at our wedding. We are so grateful to have found you - you have helped guide us to express our unity with meaning and connection. Thank you for your personal touch and excellent care and service! You are truly appreciated!

Kimberly and Cory

Thank you so much for making our ceremony so incredibly special and personal to us. It meant the world to us. We so enjoyed working with you!

L and F

Thank you for being our celebrant. You crafted our words so elegantly to show our guests how much we love each other. We enjoyed completing the questionnaire and communicating with you. You made everything seamless and cohesive. You were the perfect officiant for us!

A and H

When I asked Daniela why they chose me, this was her answer, "I would have to say it was your personality and easy going attitude. Jack and I agreed that our Officiant would have to be a priority on our list because we wanted the right type of person to tell our story to the type of audience our family would be. In other words, we wanted friendly entertainment and you just seemed like you could have been part of our family lol.

That day is still a bit of a blur for me because I was so nervous and stressed, but overall we were happy with how well everything worked out. I will say though, that everyone loved you! A lot of our family members even asked how long we'd known you because it all came out so natural. You were awesome! I can't thank you enough and we were so grateful to have such luck."

Daniela and Jack

Thank you for being such a huge part of our big day! It's been fun getting to know you, and telling you our story.

Alex and Josh

We can't tell you how much we are grateful to have found you! It was destiny with love sent by that butterfly! A million times thank you for writing such a beautiful ceremony you captured all of our love for each other, our family, and the Eagles... Thank you for capturing our love story so well and starting off our marriage on the right foot!

The Sandovals

Thank you for being our celebrant. You crafted our words so elegantly to show our guests how much we love each other. We enjoyed completing the questionnaires and communicating with you. You made everything seamless and cohesive. You were the perfect officiant for us!

With Love, A and H

Home: Testimonials

"True happiness comes from the joy of deeds well done, the zest of creating things new."

—
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Photo: Sienna Morales http://www.siennamorales.com/

Home: Quote

FAQ

The Answers You Need

Are you a minister?

I am a minister with the American Marriage Ministries, this means that I can legally preside over weddings. I have also completed one year with One Spirit Learning Alliance's Interfaith Ministry, in which I developed an understanding of many religions. I have the ability to create interfaith, non-denominational, secular or whatever type of ceremony you wish. I cannot perform some rites, for example, communion.

All officiants say that they do personalized weddings. What makes a Life-Cycle Celebrant® different?

From http://www.celebrantinstitute.org/faq.html

"Life-cycle Celebrants® are graduates of the Celebrant Foundation & Institute. Through our seven-month live, online Celebrant certification program, students are transformed into highly-trained ceremony professionals who are richly schooled in the art of ritual and ceremony. Our gold standard, college-level coursework ensures our graduates enter the field as master co-creators and performers of ceremonies that reflect the needs, beliefs and philosophies of the people they are honoring.

Life-Cycle Celebrant® bridge generations by creating ceremonies that are a genuine expression of the client honoree/s celebrated. Each ceremony is a unique reflection of a personal rite of passage, transition or celebration. They are empowering testimonies that are life affiming and become treasured legacies to be passed down from one generation to the next."

I sit with you and listen deeply so that I can understand what you want. Using your words and ideas I craft your ceremony.

What if I don't like what you have written?

Then I change it! You have the final say in what is written and it is the script I use for the ceremony, you won't be surprised!

What qualifies you to do this work?

I am a certified Life-Cycle Celebrant® (see above under what makes us different). I also have a BS in Nursing and a M.Ed. in Curriculum Studies from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. I have spent my life working with people.