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Meet Our Officiants
Meet Our Officiants
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Serving: Eastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey, northern Delaware. A child of the Caribbean, Naila (pronounced Ny lah) grew up in St. Lucia and also lived in Barbados and Antigua. She credits her island background for her love of celebration and vibrant connections, as well as for her joyous, open and empathetic approach to life. She is an ordained interfaith minister. Naila is also the assistant features editor and music columnist for a daily newspaper. Read More | |
| Naila Francis |
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Serving: All Eastern Pennsylvania regions, Southern New Jersey from Princeton to Cape May. Irene’s eclectic spirituality ranges from traditional Christian to Native American to New Age as well as all interfaith traditions. Even as she honors current wedding tradition, she is also our Renaissance and Celtic ritual expert and enjoys creating ceremonies that honor ages past. Read More | |
| Irene Fulton |
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Serving: Lancaster, York, Chester, Montgomery and Delaware counties in Pennsylvania and northern Delaware.Urbane delights in the bonding so evident in a couple’s love stories; he is inspired by the spiritual dimensions found in all of life. His interfaith experience and training taught him to value the importance of ritual in celebrating life passages. He enjoys observing the experiences of life and love that create the unique bond between two people and then drawing upon those experiences in creating the wedding ceremony. Read More | |
| Urbane Peachey |
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Serving: Greater Philadelphia Region. Linda spent the summer of 2008 travelling in South Africa with her two pre-teen daughters on a grant from Lily Endowment. They travelled over 1,000 miles on their own doing photography along their way. A Chicago native, Linda loves to step off the beaten path and has traveled to Chiapas, Mexico, Honduras, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Mozambique and Kenya, and lived in Norway and South Africa. Read More | |
| Linda Noonan |
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Serving: Philadelphia and the Northern and Western Suburbs Maria Odilia was born in Africa, the child of a Dutch mother and a Puerto Rican father. She is intrigued and delighted by cultural diversity, and values the people she has met and the art she has explored during trips to the Pacific Northwest of the USA, Europe, Japan and Latin America. By day, Maria Odilia teaches at a Quaker elementary school and enjoys the challenges and energy of her young charges. Read More | |
| Maria Odilia Romeu |
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Serving: Greater Philadelphia RegionDiane Smith-Hoban, Administrator of Journeys of the Heart and Officiant--Greater Delaware Valley Region -In addition to officiating weddings and baby blessings, Diane is involved in the day-to-day administration of Journeys of the Heart. She has been described as an intuitive, light-hearted and joyful officiant. She finds immense satisfaction in helping couples plan wonderful and memorable ceremonies incorporating their very truest selves with love and delight. Read More | |
| Diane Smith Hoban |
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Serving: Pocono Region, Lehigh Valley and Northern New Jersey Heidi resides in Henryville, PA with her husband of 10 years and their two young children, Jenna and Eli. Heidi has earned a master's degree in Counseling Psychology and has experience as a child & adolescent and family therapist and has also managed a foster care program. Currently, she is happy to be at home with her children during the day and working part-time in the evening at a doctor's office. Read More | |
| Heidi Minich |
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Serving: Philadelphia RegionMiki brings and energy and lighthearted humor to everything she does....including weddings. Inspired by the Buddhist tradition of equanimity, there is very little that flaps this unflappable spirit. She is a caring and compassionate minister who really opens her heart to the people she marries, those who are in need of spiritual creative healing rituals, babies being named, and young souls looking to honor their Jewish rite of passage by celebrating becoming a bar/bat mitzvah. Read More | |
| Miki Young |
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Serving: Chester, Lancaster, Bucks, Montgomery, Delaware and NJ As a lover of all things in nature, El especially enjoys outdoor weddings and baby blessings. She also drives great satisfaction from funeral and grief rituals for the loss of animals. She is an ordained interfaith minister, an integrative body practitioner, wellness and spiritual workshop leader, yoga instructor at www.essentialwellnessctr.com. Read More | |
| Eleanora Sybesma |
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Serving: Pocono Region, Lehigh Valley and Northern New Jersey. Susanne has a deep love of ritual and ceremony. She sees committed relationship as a spiritual practice. She is also a professional chef and teacher of culinary arts. Susanne believes in food as nourishment for the body, soul and spirit. Read More | |
| Susanne Wilson |
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Serving: Lancaster, York, Dauphin, Cumberland, Lebanon, Berks, Chester Counties. Kelly graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a BA in Anthropology and Lancaster Theological Seminary with an MA in Religion. In addition to officiating with Journeys of the Heart, she also works as a Chaplain Associate at Lancaster General Hospital and Women and Babies Hospital in Lancaster, PA. Kelly’s ecumenical background and appreciation for the wisdom in a variety of spiritual paths makes planning personalized wedding ceremonies a true joy for her. She sees committed relationship as a spiritual vocation which is given strength and support through the celebration day. Read More | |
| Kelly Fuddy |
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Serving: Philadelphia, Northern and Western suburbs, New Jersey. During her eighteen years of working as a school nurse at busy Philadelphia schools, Eileen has developed an appreciation for the many paths that bring people together as couples, families, and friends. Eileen has worked with students and families from places as diverse as Senegal and the Ivory Coast, Turkey, Palestine, Afghanistan, Nepal, and Laos. She discovered that love, care, and concern overcome language, cultural, and religious differences. Read More | |
| Eileen McCafferty DiFranco |
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Jim is a long-time high school teacher. He is a romantic and, as such, he facilitates relationship workshops in coordination with the Council for Relationships www.CouncilForRelationships.org and presents relationship-oriented seminars to professional and religious groups. Jim and Elisabeth, his bride of 35 years, recently took a trip to China to celebrate that anniversary. They have two grown children. Jim is a movie buff and he and Elisabeth enjoy their free time catching newly-released films at one of their preferred downtown Philadelphia Ritz movie theatres. Read More | |
| James McGlynn |
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Serving: Pocono Region, Lehigh Valley, Northern New Jersey. Anita married "late in life", something that is very rare and was somewhat of a concern in her very strict, Italian, Catholic family. She was performing weddings for years, always intrigued by the love story that each couple shared with her, and pined for a wonderful story of her own. When she was almost 40, she met her beloved, Stan in the San Francisco Bay area and wooed him to the Pocono Mountains of PA. They have a wonderful life, which they share with their rescue dog, Scout, and their artistic creations in the world of performance art. Anita is a movement artist, teacher, healer and lover of ritual and ceremony. Read More | |
| Anita Bondi |
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Serving: Metropolitan Philadelphia, western and northern suburbs. David believes that all of life is sacred and loves working with couples to create a wedding ceremony that reflects their love, values, hopes and dreams to all who celebrate with them. David is an ordained minister and serves as the pastor of a church in Delaware County. Before seminary, he worked at a women’s shelter and led cross-cultural, peace studies programs to South Africa. Read More | |
| David Braneky |
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Serving: Philadelphia RegionLaura Ford's path has directed her to work with incarcerated women, where her maternal tenderness soothes and comforts. Laura is active in lay leadership in her faith community, where she developed a deep love of ritual and a grounded spiritual presence. Laura is one of the founding members of Journeys of the Heart. Read More | |
| Laura Ford |
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Serving: All eastern Pennsylvania regions including upper Montgomery County, Berks, Chester, Delaware Counties and downtown Philadelphia. Hattie, who also goes by Adjwoa (pronounced odd jwa, meaning “peace” in Swahili) was born in Arkansas and raised in Chicago before settling in the Philadelphia Delaware Valley. Hattie’s spirituality is inspired by poet Maya Angelou. People have observed that Hattie’s personality is a blend of Maya Angelou and Oprah Winfrey as she is both joyful and grounded. Read More | |
| Hattie Adjwoa Waterford |
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Serving: Philadelphia Metropolitan Area including upper Bucks and Montgomery Counties, Lehigh and Northampton Counties of Pennsylvania; Hunterdon and Somerset Counties in New Jersey.Wilson admits to being an adventure junky who loves new and varied experiences, which may seem strange for a lad who was born and raised on a Mennonite dairy farm near Franconia, PA. After graduating from Albright College and teaching high school social studies for 3 years, Wilson and his bride, Anne Libbey, joined the Peace Corps and headed for India in 1966. Read More | |
| Wilson Kratz |
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Serving: Montgomery, Bucks, Philadelphia, and Cape May Counties. Helen works as a hospice chaplain and so she appreciates the balance that celebrating weddings and baby blessings brings to her life. As an ordained interfaith minister, creating sacred ceremony for all life passages is one of her passions, and she is comfortable incorporating elements of traditional faith ritual to create unique, non-traditional ceremonies. Read More | |
| Helen Burke |
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Serving: All Eastern Pennsylvania Regions, southern New Jersey, northern Delaware. Jim has been married for thirteen years and has three daughters. He marvels at the joys and challenges of family-life. He has been teaching for nearly 20 years in a variety of settings, most currently at a Quaker school where he teaches high school English and history. Read More | |
| Jim Rosengarten |
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Serving: Greater Philadelphia RegionSpecializes in Weddings and Funerals. Marguerite founded Journeys of the Heart in 1995, incorporating it in 1996. She has presided at many hundreds of ceremonies including weddings, funerals and baby blessings. She nurtured the ministry’s growth through the years from two officiants to the current eighteen. Marguerite personally oversees the training of all new officiants and wishes to remain accessible to all clients served by Journeys of the Heart. She founded Journeys of the Heart on the basic principals of hospitality which she first learned from her Irish Grandmother Bridget as a young child. Read More | |
| Marguerite Sexton Founder |
Call our toll-free or local number or use the contact form below to e-mail us directly.
Toll-Free
877-WE-MARRY
(877-936-2779)
Local
215-663-8980
journeys@journeysoftheheart.org
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