It used to be that slipping away to Sin City to exchange “I Do's” in front of Elvis—or, at least, the best available approximation of the jumpsuit-clad crooner—was the thing to do for couples looking for a larger-than-life officiant to legitimize their hunk of burning love. But move over, King. There's a new(ish) Queen in the nuptials game. And her name is Reverend Roxy.
But make no mistake about it—unlike the legions of pompadour-topped fellas curling their lips and wiggling their hips along the Las Vegas Strip, Rev Roxy—full name Roxanne Birchfield—is the real deal. Yes, she's the same Rev Roxy who's helped celebrity couples make it official on shows like Love & Hip Hop and Love Is Blind. Yes, she's been featured in The New York Times, ESSENCE magazine and Forbes, just to name a few notable publications. But Birchfield, along with her husband and fellow minister, Rev. Joshua Birchfield, is serious about marriage and serious about helping each and every couple who comes into her fold—A-list, B-list, Z-list or no list—follow through on that “until death do us part” promise.
Birchfield comes from a family of ministers. “I'm third-generation clergy,” she says. Her parents both hailed from the Caribbean and met in seminary school in Trinidad. Still, it wasn't a forgone conclusion that she would follow in their footsteps. Raised in Brooklyn, New York, she attended the notable LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts (alumni include Jennifer Aniston, Marlon Wayans and Adrien Brody) where she studied acting. When it came time to pick a college and her goal of gaining admittance to The Julliard School didn't materialize, she decided to look outside New York City. “I didn't even want to be in the state of New York,” explains Birchfield. “I just wanted something different. I felt New York had too much distraction.” That led her to Penn State University in State College, which offered her a partial scholarship for its theater program.
Her time in Happy Valley was Birchfield's first introduction to Pennsylvania. A few years later, she'd be back. First, though, there would be love and marriage—for herself—as well as a vocation change. “Eventually I felt called as a young adult into ministry to go to seminary school,” says Birchfield. She recalls the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, which happened when she was a senior in high school, as a turning point. “I always tell people that 9/11 had a real, huge impact on me and me wanting to do something for my community or people in general.” She would go on to earn her Master of Divinity from Nyack College's Alliance Theological Seminary.
In 2012, while Birchfield was undergoing training in South Carolina to serve as a chaplain in the U.S. Army Reserve, she met the fellow student who would become her husband just three short weeks later. She and Joshua were married during a lunch break. Birchfield admits, it was an unconventional courtship, and one she doesn't necessarily recommend to the couples who currently seek her tutelage. “[This year] we're celebrating 10 years of marriage, but also just 10 years of knowing each other,” she says. Still, she describes their connection as profound. “I can't even imagine my life without him,” Birchfield says.
Later, the Birchfields settled into their first apartment together in the Bronx, but the Mrs. was building a wish list: “I want a house, and I want grass, and I want trees,” she remembers thinking. She was on the subway one day when something on the back page of a fellow rider's newspaper caught her eye. It was an advertisement for affordable homes in the Poconos—just a 90-minute commute outside of the city. “I was like, really? Do people really live there and try to come to the city every day? And I discovered it was a normal thing,” Birchfield says. She convinced Joshua to take the plunge, and in 2015 they became the proud owners of their first house in Pike County, where they lived for six years.
Beyond her work with the U.S. Army Reserve, where Birchfield, a battalion chaplain, served more than 600 soldiers, she also worked as a clinical chaplain with St. Luke's Hospice and as a contracted chaplain with Geisinger Health network. She and her husband welcomed their first child, daughter Hunter, in 2016. That same year, a favor for a family member would give birth to a persona and a business: Married by Rev Roxy.
After she agreed to serve as the officiant for her sister's wedding, Birchfield began receiving requests to do the same for others. She believes the combination of her background in theater and her experience as a chaplain resonated with people. Her name ended up on the call list for a producer for VH1's Love & Hip Hop. They needed someone to marry rapper Juelz Santana and Kimbella Vanderhee for an episode of the show. Oh, and the wedding was happening in two days. “[The producer] said, ‘Yes or no. Can you do it?'” Birchfield said yes. “The night that it aired on TV I started getting bookings,” she recalls. “It exploded.” Her phone was ringing off the hook, and her DMs were piling up. She later married couples on other reality shows like Netflix's Love Is Blind and Lifetime's Married at First Sight.
While the TV appearances may spark a bump in business, Birchfield knows they aren't a guarantee of longevity in her line of work. That's why she stakes her reputation on substance, rather than the superficial. “That stuff I show you on Instagram, you can copy that,” she says. “You can copy my outfit, you can try to talk like me. But the deeper thing is the relationship and the connection to the people. That's the work.” Birchfield invests a significant amount of time in every couple she agrees to marry. She initially gets to know them through a lengthy questionnaire and then works with them to craft a personalized ceremony. “They approve every single word I'm going to say,” Birchfield explains. “Nothing is a surprise.”
Birchfield's hope for the couples who come her way is that they don't encounter any surprises after the ceremony, either. And that's why her chief piece of advice for anyone who wants to tie the knot is to undergo premarital counseling. It's one of the services she and her husband provide. “Some of the conversations are uncomfortable, but some of them are also just odd,” Birchfield says. “I call them the unsexy conversations, talking about expectations. Like who do you expect to take the garbage out, or fix the car, or do yard work?” It's the best wedding insurance a couple can get, says Birchfield: “It's better to have these conversations when you haven't invested 50 grand. I'm just sayin'.”
Birchfield and her family, which also includes son Joshua, Jr., moved back to the New York City area in 2021. She's still active as a chaplain with the U.S. military, although she recently transferred to the Air Force Reserve. Her business, Married by Rev Roxy, is based in Westfield, New Jersey, where there is a space on-site for couples seeking what Birchfield calls an office signing—basically, it's a more aesthetically pleasing backdrop than what the typical courthouse ceremony provides.
But Birchfield is by no means tethered to the East Coast. She's flown all over the world to officiate at wedding ceremonies. When asked to name an especially memorable one, she cites Dr. Kerry Anne and Michael Gordon, who tied the knot during a Black Lives Matter protest in Philadelphia in June of 2020. The story went viral around the world and was picked up and disseminated by media outlets like CNN and the Philadelphia Inquirer. It also made the pages of Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. The couple's first look happened outside The Logan hotel, as protesters cheered and applauded around them. It was a joyful moment, a welcome respite during an otherwise trying summer. Birchfield says she was honored to be a part of it. “I always tell people, when you see me at the wedding, there's no telling if something crazy might happen.”
