Weddings

It was a pleasure having you conduct our ceremony. It felt as if we knew you for years. You made our day very special. People were asking me afterward if we knew you because they felt the warmth.

Shelley & Dave

Mary did an absolutely amazing job officiating our wedding!! Mary is professional, reliable, and truly amazing at what she does. Would recommend.

Our Fairy God Mother

THANK YOU again for officiating our wedding! It was a perfect ceremony and we couldn't be happier with how it went. So many of our guests came up to us and asked where we found you. They thought you were outstanding... and we couldn't agree more!

Jason & Paul

We were absolutely delighted that you helped us on our big day, and so very much appreciate the thoughtful, centered presence you brought to us at the ceremony. You created magic with your words and energy. It was a joyous, magical day.

Keith & Sharon

Mary is an amazing person we definitely recommend to have her as your Officiant. We highly recommend Mary. She is so caring and makes you feel so comfortable and calming for your special day.

Thank you so much for marrying us and for making our wedding ceremony exactly what we hoped it would be. Our guests were so complimentary of everything about the ceremony, particularly how wonderful you were! Any couple would be lucky to have you performing their marriage ceremony.

Alison & Mark

We just wanted to thank you for all of your help on Saturday. Many of our guests (our families especially) commented on how much they enjoyed the ceremony and how special your words were. And I especially appreciated your help before the ceremony...your encouragement really helped put me at ease!

Caitlin & Blaine

We were looking for an officiant for our wedding. We came across Mary and she had such great reviews. We live pretty far away from our venue so she met with us over skype which was great. Once we met her we knew knew we had found our officiant. Mary is so friendly, very knowledgeable and has a great sense of humour, our family and friends loved her. She wrote such a beautiful ceremony and even helped with our vows when we got a little stuck. I would 100% recommended Mary to anyone!

5 out of 5 Stars

Wonderful!

Mary took the time to get to know us, the type of wedding we wanted and provided guidance when we needed it. She was always quick to respond to our emails and was flexible with our meeting times. She has a very calming presence yet was quick to laugh with us too! She even made sure her outfit matched our wedding colors!! A friend brought her mother as her guest, her mother said that even though she didn’t know my spouse and I that by the end of the ceremony she felt like she knew us.

5 out of 5 All around wonderful experience with Mary!!

Tasha

Mary was a wonderful officiant on our special day! She was very responsive and showed up on time and helped us wrote a beautiful ceremony piece !!! She did an AWESOME job . I would recommend her to anyone!!! 10/10

Best Officiant!!

We had Mary officiate for our wedding in June and were blown away with her! She was so thorough with giving us all the information we needed right off the bat, always checked in on us to make sure we weren’t confused about anything at all and really took the time to get to know us which made our wedding ceremony that much more personal and special. We are still getting such compliments to this day on how beautiful our ceremony was. We had issues with our microphone from our DJ during the ceremony and Mary made the best of it and just projected her voice to keep the ceremony moving smoothly , she really saved the day! We cannot say enough great things about her kindness, professionalism, and creativity, I would highly recommend Mary for anyone needing an officiant for their wedding, she does not disappoint!

Mary was the BEST officiant!!

5 Stars

Thanks so much Mary, Ash and Jack Waller

Mary was really wonderful to work with leading up to our wedding. She made everything easy and was so accommodating at helping us understand the process. Even during numerous lockdowns she face-timed with us and kept in contact with constant emails. She helped to make our day very special. Thank you, Mary! Since our wedding has been over, Mary has also been helpful with sending us reminders about when to apply for all our documentation.

Truly a Gem

Mary made our wedding so beautiful and unique! She made the day less stressful due to her experience with weddings! She knew exactly what looks nice in photos and gave helpful tips to us who had not been in or too very many weddings! Our ceremony felt so personal and was extremely full of love! I appreciate everything that Mary did for us and would recommend her to anyone getting married!

"Mary was an absolute delight and everything that we could have hoped for in an officiant! We really wanted to have a family member be a part of the officiating and Mary helped us to accomplish that. Our ceremony perfectly represented us as a couple and we received many compliments from our guests. We will be recommending Mary to anyone that requires an officiant!"

Hi Mary, I imagine you are quite busy these days, but we wanted to take some time to say a few words in thanking you for marrying us at Stillwater. What a lovely day! To us, everything went perfectly and we were so happy with the whole event. We have some wonderful pictures of all of us together on the gazebo, if you would like to use them for marketing purposes that would be fine with us. We are so thankful to you for keeping us calm and breathing throughout the ceremony and we were so happy. Our friends and family were full of compliments, and I hope you don't mind but you should have some new reviews on weddingwire! Thank you for your lovely card and thank you for all the rainbow love you brought to the event! Shazam!

Mary was delightful! I felt completely taken care of. She was very responsive to our needs in terms of the tone and wording of the ceremony and took extra time to work with us on the text. She conducted the ceremony with warmth and ease, which relaxed everyone, especially the bride and groom! Many of our guests complimented us on the warmth and beauty of the ceremony and Mary was a big part of the reason. Our wedding was just what we had hoped it would be. We will never forget our wonderful wedding and cannot thank Mary enough for bring her humor, her grace and loving touch.

Michael & April

It was an absolute delight to work with Mary. She listens attentively and was willing to build our ceremony around a few unique elements that were very important to us. Our guests all commented on the warmth and care that she puts into her presentation. Mary adds life to the ceremony without taking any of the focus away from the couple getting married. She is fun and professional and full of helpful little tips to make things run smoothly on the big day!

Warm and professional and makes the whole process easy

Dear Rev. Mary Mc Candless, You managed to officiate this ceremony in such a deep and meaningful way. We still mention you and speak highly of you. This wonderful Union was also very special because of you ❤️😊 so grateful I witnessed all this, what a memorable day.

Absolutely brilliant! I still can't believe our luck in finding Mary on this website after our original plan fell through. From the very first email until hugging her as a married couple after our ceremony, our experience with Mary was exemplary. During the lead-up months she guided us wisely, with care and gentle humour, and put us completely at ease then and on the day. We were both quite nervous the morning of, but as soon as Mary appeared she instilled a sense of calm and joy. Our family and friends have said to us many times that it was the best wedding they'd ever been to, and much of this was due to Mary. She made everyone feel welcome and loved. I would highly recommend her to any couple embarking on this exciting adventure.

Heather Shaw

My wife and I couldn't have been happier having Mary officiate our wedding. We immediately knew we made the right choice the moment we met. Her deep perception of love flowed seamlessly through her words. Her warmth radiated from her smile and her gentle touch put us at ease. She effortlessly spoke with passion and harmony as if she was dancing with the divine. Mary italicized our special day and had us transfixed on it's beauty. To put it simple, Mary is magic. We couldn't recommend her more as she is one of a kind.

When we decided to be married the first officiant that came to my mind was Mary. Without a doubt, next to marrying one another, best decision we made. She was beyond our expectations as an officiant. If we were to do it all again we would not hesitate to choose Mary. Highly recommended!!!

I can't say enough about Mary McCandless as an Officiant at our wedding. My now husband, then fiancee, and I had been engaged for over 6 years. You'd think after 6 years, we'd have a pretty good idea of what we wanted, but we didn't. We knew we wanted to gather our loved ones togethers, we knew we wanted a meaningful, personal wedding that reflected who we are as individuals (he is Jewish, I am not, but loved the idea of incorporating Jewish traditions into our ceremony) and who we are as a couple. We felt at ease with Mary right away, especially when we realized that she had lots of experience with inter-cultural weddings and that she showed delight at working with us to make our wedding a personal reflection of us. She provided the perfect balance of support (she provided us with a draft of the ceremony based on our expressed wishes and gave us time to revise it as we wished), encouragement and humour. When things started to go off the rails on my rehearsal night (the building was locked up with no one in sight and no one to contact - fault of security company), Mary was a calming influence on me and was quite ready to rehearse outside the building, if need be. Talk about flexibility. Fortunately, we managed to get in the building eventually after security was summoned. Mary conducted the ceremony that we had created with such warmth and authenticity that people still to this day talk about what a wonderful ceremony we had. It couldn't have gone better. My husband and I highly recommend Mary McCandless as an officiant for your wedding or other ceremony. She has wonderful, easygoing, professionalism about her and this makes for an intimate and authentic ceremony. We found her rates to be very good as well. She is eager to work with you to create a ceremony that you both truly want. And that makes all the difference.

Mary personalized our wedding ceremony for us and made the day so memorable! Mary's presence and positive energy made it such a warm ceremony. We are so grateful! All of our guests were talking about how powerful Mary's words were and they were all so impressed. We are so pleased and we will remember this day forever.

Having Mary as our wedding Officiant was perfection! Her sensitivity to our needs, her responsiveness to our schedule, and her kind and generous way of addressing every aspect of the ceremony made the day a true joy! I can't imagine anyone else being part of our celebration. I would recommend Mary to any couple thinking of tying the knot!

Mary did a wonderful job with our wedding ceremony. Several guests commented on the service. She was very professional and she worked the during rehearsal with us to cover off all of the details. During planning of the wedding, Mary took all of our input and allowed us to make changes. She was very helpful and provided good suggestions for the vows. On our Wedding Day, Mary was very clam and reassuring, I was anxious, so she made sure we were calm & reminded us to breathe.

Mary, thank you, thank you, thank you for a very wonderful ceremony! You truly are an inspiration and we will cherish our day (and life) together always and forever... amen. Mary did much more then just marry Debbie and I, she actually "sang" a few lines of a song at the end that just blew us and our families away! Like WOW Mary!!! Mary also helped in more ways then one the night before for our rehersals in keeping everything together. I, the groom was feeling a tad overwhelmed with the wedding (my first after searching for the perfect mate after almost 58yrs... lol) and Mary was able to keep me relaxed and everyone else as well.

The day of our wedding, Mary came through yet again to help my two brothers (grooms men) and myself with "pins" to hold our roses to our suit jackets. Mary comes complete with everything. 🙂 You get more then your monies worth when you hire this woman. When you hire Mary... you not only get an Entertainer, an Officiant, but someone that is a Friend that cares about you.

If we decide to renew our vows, I'd love to have Mary as our Officiant once again. Seriously, after Debbie's and my very first and only wedding, both of us would gladly do the ceremony all over again as it was very emotional and fun! The "highlight" of the day we both would agree on is that Mary was an "Angel" sent from the heavens above to marry us. This wedding took place at Darlington Provincial Park in Courtice Ontario just a few hundred feet from the shores of Lake Ontario. We're sure that Mary brought us the beautiful weather... sunny with a light breeze.

To other couples that seek a Wedding Officiant, your "typical" man or woman that will marry you will NOT offer the genuine service that Rev. Mary McCandless would provide. I know this because as a "wedding disc Jockey" for over 30yrs, there has never been one Officiant that was as personable, compassionate or even entertaining as Mary. About 99% of the men Officiants were "stale, boring".

Our truly, amazing and inspiring, uplifting and guiding, Wedding Officiant, Mary Elizabeth McCandless.... her words, her heart, her voice, her kindness and her love added so much warmth to our special day... thank you, again, Mary for everything you gave and shared with us that day!!!

Mary McCandless made us feel very comfortable. She has a very gentle side and really helped us to stay calm during the ceremony. Even though she met us only briefly, we felt that she was able to personalize the ceremony to ensure it was meaningful to us. Our friends loved the way she conducted the ceremony. She has an engaging way of speaking and a genuine caring illuminates from her when she officiates.

Joanne & Sam

Mary McCandless has a loving energy that emanates from her and envelopes those around her. We were looking for someone with a soft approach, someone who would listen to our needs and someone to calm our nerves the day of the wedding! Mary did all of these things and more. We would recommend Mary to any couple, especially those who appreciate the power and rareness of divine spiritual connection.

Samantha & Matthew

Mary was a *dream* wedding officiant. She oozes warmth, from the first time we spoke to her, it felt as if she was an old family friend! At the ceremony, she managed to tread perfectly the line between doing everything we asked of her, adding in touches that we absolutely loved - as did our guests, whom she managed to make both laugh and cry! I really can't recommend her highly enough.  We feel so lucky to have had her there on our special day - she made it more special than we could have hoped for.

Marsha & Paul

You were absolutely fantastic! You made the day all about what Adam and I wanted, and were so kind and reassuring on the day of the wedding! I am so happy to have met you and to have you at our special day! You were so helpful in navigating how to make a ceremony personal to us!  The service was amazing. Thanks again!

Leah & Adam

Mary was absolutely fantastic! We have been recommending her to everyone we know who's getting married.

Jennifer & Michael

Mary McCandless met and exceeded our expectations. From the very first minute we met she was kind and warm and very lovely. She wrote the perfect ceremony for us and everyone loved her. Mary was very friendly and also very helpful. She assisted us through every step of the wedding/ceremony and was wonderful with all our guests. Everyone commented about how great she was and how she was the perfect person to perform our ceremony.

Hanna & John

Mary McCandless was a warm, kind and understanding Officiant, I would recommend Mary to anyone who wants to have a special ceremony. She is a wonderful person and professional.  It was a seamless process from beginning to end.

Mandi & Bob

Darin and I both wanted to thank you so much for the beautiful ceremony you performed for us.  Although we were technically already married, we both felt very moved and are so happy that we decided to have the second ceremony with our family and friends and having you perform it in the manner which you did was wonderful and very touching so Thank You!!

Deborah & Darin

What an amazing day!  Thank you so much for being a part of our special day, joining our two hearts together. It is interesting to feel the new vibration of my body and how when I now hug Vicki I can feel her heart even more. It is like it is reaching out of her chest. You are such an amazing spirit, we thank you and love you for sharing your blessing with us.

Carrie & Vicki

Mary, you didn't meet our expectations, you exceeded them!  Thank you, thank you, thank you for the part you played in our wedding.  I felt that the room was humming with love and positive energy, and you certainly accentuated that. Thank you.

Vanessa & Andrew