Our Instructors

With 30 years of experience as an educator, Donna spent her career teaching in inner-city classrooms, as well as developing and implementing high-standards of curricula. Donna took a sabbatical in 2014 to earn her Masters in Leadership and Administration. That same year, Marriage Equality passed in her state of Pennsylvania. Within days of the lifting of the same-sex marriage ban, Donna officiated her first wedding, marrying two men in their 70’s. This prompted her to go through the Humanist Society to become endorsed as a Humanist Celebrant.

That decision proved to be a life-changing event, leading Donna to retire from education to pursue her Humanist Celebrant business full-time. Donna has since officiated hundreds of ceremonies and built a full-time Celebrant business, Lehigh Valley Celebrants. Under her leadership, the business has grown to include six other working, Humanist Celebrants. Through mentorship-style learning, Donna and her team have become highly sought-after Celebrants in the region and are hired to reside over numerous life celebrations each year.

Celebrant Academy allows Donna to share her dedication to continuous learning with the skills that have made her a marketable Celebrant, such as her background in theater, public speaking, storytelling, marketing and writing. Her goal is to help other Celebrants craft meaningful, couple-centered ceremonies and to guide them in creating an atmosphere where everyone feels like they are part of the celebration.

Earnest and innovative, Donna keeps her finger on the pulse of wedding industry trends and collaborates with important creatives and thought leaders. She currently is Vice President of the Board of the Humanist Society and takes an active role with providing training opportunities for Humanist Celebrants nationwide.

Since 2005, she has officiated hundreds of unique ceremonies, and her diverse background in religious philosophy, music, and social justice directly informs her work.

From 1990 to 2006, Lois worked as an educator and advocate in the battered women/anti-rape movement; teaching and working for social change. In her earlier years, she was a hard-working musician and singer-songwriter; performing on stages from New York City to Europe. Her formal education was in religious philosophy at Temple University in Philadelphia. 

Lois is a graduate of the Celebrant Foundation and Institute and an endorsed Humanist Celebrant of the Humanist Society, as well as a member of other clergy and wedding associations. Her leadership in the field has lead to an active and highly popular wedding blog which she has written for the Pocono Record since 2006.

She is included in the publication, Life-Cycle Ceremonies: A Handbook for Your Whole Life, and is featured in the Marlo Thomas book, It Ain’t Over...Till It’s Over. In 2018, Lois was a contributor on the wedding podcast, Put a Ring on It.

 Lois lives in the Pocono area of Pennsylvania with her husband and adoring springer spaniels! On her beautiful wooded property, she has created Harmony Gardens – a highly sought-after elopement and micro-wedding venue.

Hi, I'm Lauren Hill, the owner of Simply Weddings NYC in Brooklyn, New York. I'm a licensed Celebrant/Officiant and I can cater to couples across the globe.

Wedding ceremonies are filled with more than we can imagine; they are the core of the entire event. I firmly believe that every couple deserves a genuinely unforgettable experience on their wedding day. So whether you are looking for an intimate affair with just or an elaborate extravaganza, I am ready to support you and your partner on this special day.

Your wedding ceremony should honor and celebrate your love, beliefs, and backgrounds - let me share yours!

Services Offered:

Lauren Hill serves as a celebrant and officiant all over the country. To help understand your wedding vision and get to know you, she offers convenient video conferencing services. In addition to marriage officiating, she provides premarital and marriage coaching, custom wedding scripts, vows, rehearsal coordination, vendor referrals, and other services. She conducts the following ceremonies:

• Interfaith Ceremonies
• Secular Ceremonies
• Religious Ceremonies
• Commitment Ceremonies
• Rehearsal Services
• Vow Renewals
• Family/Friend Officiant Coaching Services

Beth Stokes is an endorsed Humanist Celebrant based in Cambridge, MA. She began conducting funerals in 2017, and is an advocate and educator for end of life planning, home funerals, and green burials. Last year she created a series of community ceremonies for ecological grief. And, already interested in the influence of technology on grief rituals, in March 2020 she quickly collaborated on and devised alternative ceremonies, such as online funerals and rituals for distanced grief, to better support funeral homes, families, and other celebrants during the pandemic.

Beth has an extensive grounding in philosophy, and has held professional roles in ethical leadership, creative and technical writing, technology, finance, and experience design. Prior to her work as a celebrant she was part of the leadership team of a Quaker organization, facilitating organizational conversations around racism, sexism, governance, money, education, and religion. She also freelanced as a fiction and memoir editor, helping authors shape compelling, satisfying, and “true enough” stories. In 2017 she took a step back to consolidate her focus and happened to read a deeply reported article in the New York Times about a living funeral. The role of celebrant appealed to her immediately as a natural fit. 

Beth is a graduate of the Celebrant Foundation & Institute and as a non-theist was strongly drawn to The Humanist Society when seeking celebrancy endorsement. In addition to being a member of The Humanist Society, she is also a member of the National Home Funeral Alliance, Funeral Consumers Alliance of Eastern Massachusetts, Green Burial Massachusetts, and the International Association of Professional Wedding Officiants.  

Having traveled extensively and lived outside of the U.S. a number of times, Beth is comfortable considering different points of view and alternate ways of doing things. Recent personal projects include learning Dutch, creating a portable solar set-up, and rock drumming. Beth’s formal education is in creative writing, poetry, psychology, and organizational communications. 

Kristabeth was a pastor in a Christian denomination for 18 years. Today she brings the heart of a pastor to her work with people of all identities and spiritual and secular worldviews. Through her business, Rites of Passage, she helps people grow, heal, and transform through life’s changes. 

Throughout her career, Kristabeth has officiated hundreds of weddings, funerals, and other life transition rituals. She has experience with religious, interfaith, secular, and spiritual-but-not-religious ceremonies. 

While she enjoys working with her wedding and funeral clients, her heart is in connecting with people around the common, but often overlooked, transitions in life. Retirement, divorce, adoption, moving, illness, milestone birthdays, coming out, and pet loss are all significant life transitions. Kristabeth loves working with her clients to design creative, meaningful ceremonies to mark these, and other, important life events. 

Kristabeth is always eager to share the transformative power of change through ritual and ceremony and can’t wait to work with the students of Celebrant Academy! She supports a collaborative learning style and is eager to share her expertise and knowledge while recognizing the wisdom, experience, and creativity the students bring to the learning environment. 

Credentials: Master of Divinity from Bangor Theological Seminary, Bachelors of Arts in Social and Behavioral Sciences from the University of Southern Maine, Clinical Pastoral Education at The Chaplaincy Center in Rhode Island, Mediation Skills Training from the Lombard Mennonite Peace Center, Tending the Fire Leadership Training in Systems Theory

Memberships: Vermont Elder Resource Group, American Marriage Ministries, Vermont Association of Wedding Professionals, Spiritual Directors International, International Association of Professional Wedding Officiants, Open Path Healing Arts Collective