Meet Marie Burns Holzer of Let’s Get Married SoCal

Today we’d like to introduce you to Marie Burns Holzer.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Marie. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I’m a non-denominational wedding officiant. I started when my oldest friend in the world (the one who taught me boys hit you when they like you and how to put on eyeliner) told me she was engaged. I told her I was ordained and could officiate their wedding as a gift if she was interested. She was stoked. As we chatted about the ceremony, she told me that I should start doing this professionally. I’m sure it helped that she had just launched her own clothing line and was rather evangelical about entrepreneurship, but I thought that maybe she was on to something. A week later, I had four emails with lists upon lists of links my best friend had sent me of people who officiate weddings for a living. When I told my husband about all this, he immediately got excited and told me I needed to start as soon as possible! I launched the website (letsgetmarriedsocal.com) in October of 2011. I was doing this full time within 6 months and have performed just over 700 ceremonies since then.

Has it been a smooth road?
I faced a lot of challenges when I first started and there was definitely a learning curve. Being a female officiant is not easy and I faced a lot of scrutiny for being so young as well. (I was only in my late twenties when I started.) It seemed that some people really didn’t know what to make of a young non-religious Latina performing weddings. It took a lot of trial and error to learn how to market myself well online so the right people would find me. Within the past two years, I’ve found a really good sense of who is attracted to me and who I work well with. It’s also exciting because not only am I booking over 125 amazing weddings a year, I’m now doing a podcast sharing my experiences with both other wedding professionals and couples planning their weddings.

We’d love to hear more about your business.
I am a non-denominational wedding officiant specializing in custom ceremonies. I’m known for celebrating couples for who they are as individuals and as a couple instead of trying to fit them into some “insert name here” style celebrations. I’m really proud of the fact that I’ve earned a reputation for being warm and creative while making my couples’ wedding experience fun, unique, and personal. I’m most proud of all the rave reviews my couples have written for me and the fact that at least a third of my couples stay in contact with me on social media. It’s so fulfilling to see where my couples are years later with new jobs, new homes, furbabies, and kids!

Is our city a good place to do what you do?
LA is such a fantastic place. It’s teeming with people from all over the world, so there are so many couples looking for ways to be creative and celebrate unique combinations of culture, religion, and language in their wedding ceremonies. It helps that LA is so populated because weddings are happening every day of the week here! For people new to the industry, I recommend focusing on marketing to their niche. There is an especially high demand for people who speak another language like Spanish, Korean, Tagalog, or Japanese.

Pricing:

• Elopement services range from $399 to $1,499
• Wedding services range from $599 to $799

Contact Info:

• Website: letsgetmarriedsocal.com
• Phone: 714-955-2773
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: instagram.com/letsgetmarriedsocal
• Facebook: facebook.com/letsgetmarriedsocal
• Yelp: yelp.com/biz/lets-get-married-socal-riverside
• Other: weddingwire.com/biz/lets-get-married-socal/418ba5eb62cfbaca.html

Image Credit:
Keri Rico Photography, Jenn & Pawel Photography, Simply Perfect Images, John W Photography

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