Rev. Francesca Fortunato

When we met with Rev. Francesca the January before our July wedding, she assured us that she could accommodate our request for a spiritual and only minimally religious wedding to meet the requirements of some of our elderly relatives. Though religion was important to them, the two of us consider ourselves agnostic, but it was important to us to include "God" or a higher power in our ceremony. When we booked her and received our sample ceremony, it was very, very religious. There were three prayers and a reading from the Bible included. Needless to say, this is not exactly what we had envisioned.
We sent her an e-mail back reiterating our points and trying to explain what was lacking (and overdone) in this initial draft. We received an e-mail back and to say that it was harshly worded is a gross understatement. She basically told us that she didn't understand why we had booked her if we didn't want God mentioned in our ceremony at all and then told us that we should have gotten a justice of the peace to perform the ceremony. We were upset because that isn't what we had said AT ALL! We wanted God in our ceremony, we just didn't want creationist language and prayers that would cause others to be uncomfortable - which is what we were given.
She did finally give us what she wanted, but she made a big stink at the rehearsal, insisting that the minister be the first to leave after the ceremony was over (which I had never seen and the venue insisted was the wrong thing to do) AND she used a BRIGHT GREEN FOLDER FOR OUR CEREMONY. It is hideous in all of the pictures. Even manila would have been better. Though she was not my favorite vendor, she did get her job done...with a lot of coercing on our part.