Greetings and welcome to Heart of Sedona Weddings!

My name is Rev. Andrew Murphy and as your wedding minister I’d like to congratulate you on your decision to marry. Along with my beautiful wife and gifted planner, Laura Marolakos, we make up the Heart of Sedona Wedding team.

a pathway into the heart

Having been an ordained minster for nearly all of my adult life I can say without a doubt that marriage, when lived consciously and lovingly, can lead to the deepest joy and satisfaction in life. It’s one of the primary means of maturation in our society and at its best serves as a pathway not only into the heart of another, but into the very heart of Life and Love itself. For this reason our company bears the title Heart of Sedona Weddings.

My interest and passion for ministry began many years ago. Upon being formally trained at Jesuit School of Theology in Chicago and ordained a Jesuit Catholic Priest by Bishop Nicholas Di Antonio in my hometown of New Orleans, I was commissioned to serve cross-culturally in India and Mexico and later was relocated to the southwestern corridor of the U.S. It was during that time that I discovered the power of ceremony to transform lives. I also came to recognize my own strong interest in performing liturgical celebrations, particularly wedding celebrations, with the added dimension of preparing couples for marriage through directed retreats, counseling and marriage-prep in English and Spanish.

a deep devotion to life, love, nature and God

A deep devotion to life, love, nature and God, which defines my spirituality, was what gave impetus and direction to my ministry. Upon leaving the Jesuit Order after 23 years to pursue other interests, I made my way back to Mumbai, India. There I studied Eastern spirituality, which helped me understand my life-experience from an entirely different perspective. At the same time it afforded me the unique opportunity to discern more clearly the deep currents of wisdom, beauty and truth that run through all major spiritual traditions, especially my own “Contemplative in Action” Jesuit-Christian tradition. Each tradition, you might say, is an insightful language of metaphor, concept and myth that points its adherents to the liberating Mystery of the Heart (God), a mystery that can be embraced only by love.

a vast outdoor cathedral, a nourishing high-desert oasis

After returning to the U.S. I visited Sedona, AZ and was totally captivated by its extraordinary natural beauty. Its diverse landscape of mountains, forests, canyons and streams moved me like no other place I had visited. To me Sedona was like a vast outdoor cathedral, a nourishing high-desert oasis where my soul could flourish and where the energy and majesty of nature helped to soothe and quiet the mind, giving access into the Heart (Being). Here I would be given the opportunity to redirect my gifts and talents in a simpler, more contemporary, non denominational way, one that integrated Nature and Spirituality as a way to open the Heart to Love. To my delightful surprise Sedona just happened to be one of the nation’s premiere destination wedding centers! That same year, 1996, Heart of Sedona Weddings was created.

Since my first wedding ceremony in the red rock mountains of Sedona it’s been an exciting and transformative journey. I continue with the same enthusiasm, inspired especially by the love reflected through the extraordinary women and men who choose Sedona for their wedding destination. For me, to stand before a couple and witness the love between them is to feel at one with one of life’s most precious gifts.

your wedding day a dream come true!

In concluding, I’d like to say that it would be a great joy and privilege for us at Heart of Sedona Weddings to provide you with the professional talent and personal, heart-felt touch necessary to make your wedding day a dream come true!