Stephen L J Hoffman, Justice of the Peace

Please do not make the mistake of using this guy even for an informal wedding. He used the 'F' word in front of everyone _during_ the ceremony. Several times. Not an accidental slip up. He was disrespectful and full of himself. He kept checking his iPhone. We had a small wedding, but it was special to us. And, man, I wish this guy hadn't been a part of it.

Unfortunately I would not reccommend him to anyone! We went downtown to meet him, and thought it went well. He asked us when we were planning on doing our rehearsal and we, at that time told him it would be the Friday before our wedding and that we had already booked Oscars that night. He then stated to us that HE would prefer that we do it on a Thurs b/c he does weddings on Friday's but never once mentioned that he wouldn't be there until Thurs before the wedding! Thank goodness for Nidhi @ The Elements, she totally saved our day.. otherwise we would have had NO IDEA what to do. We also told him we didn't want to repeat the vows and we would only say "I will" of course since he didn't show up to the rehearsal to get these things taken care of we ended up not knowing when to say what.. the exchanging of rings and all. We were very disappointed to say the least!

Steve knows what to do and does a great job doing it. He is also very friendly and responds to your emails and phone calls quickly.

Even though my husband and I are total dorks when it comes to saying our vows, Stephen made us feel at ease when repeating what we weren't supposed to, and for giggling during vows. From the first time we spoke on the phone I knew I had no worries - we met 10minutes before the ceremony, so he could make sure to pronounce names right and get a feel for the type of ceremony we wanted. We certainly recommend Stephen, he's wonderful.

Steve was GREAT. He was cool as a cucumber, knew exactly what to do and when. He is a great improvisor and knows his stuff!

He is very nice, very appropriate, will do whatever you want, within reason. He is on time, dressed appropriately, and has a nice speaking voice. He charges a reasonable fee. He let us write the ceremony, and for the most part, he read it and did it as we liked. There was one part where he went off and did his own thing. He asked who was giving this woman to be wed, and my dad was forced to say "I do". I had not put that part in the ceremony, because I did not want anyone to formally give me away. When we rehearsed the ceremony, there was no mention of that exchange, so I was very surprised during the real ceremony, when we asked that. My dad was also caught off guard by it, and said "I do", and we just went on from there. Since I had explicitly asked him not to do that part, and since we had not done it during the rehearsal, I thought it was clear that we didn't want it. But, he did it. So I would recommend that if you want a lot of flexibilty with the ceremony, you should consider him, but be very explicit about what you want in it and what you don't want in it--and be ready during the real thing to speak up and say "no one" or I give myself away", in case he or whomever you chose says it anyway out of habit. Remember, it is your wedding, and the officiant is only human, so they might make mistakes, but you can correct them on the spot, instead of being too surprised to react and just going along with it like we did.

Steve was FANTASTIC. We wanted to write our own ceremony, and Steve totally embraced that. Steve seemed to be honored to be a part of our day. I would recommend him to anyone!

He is wonderful.. He makes you at ease on your busy day.