engagement

Celebrating Love

 in Celebration / Engagement / Love / Weddings  tagged celebrating love / engagement / holiday / wedding by

December holidays are a great time for celebrating love. It might be love for your family – chosen or by blood. Perhaps you celebrate love for your community with donations and volunteer work. Or maybe you’re celebrating love of the romantic sort, with an engagement or wedding.

This time of year is the most popular time for engagements, followed closely by Valentine’s Day. If you’re celebrating love with an engagement this month – Congratulations! Gathering with family and friends at the holidays provides a great opportunity to share the news of your plans to marry.

If this holiday season includes an engagement, you have the exciting work of planning your wedding in front of you. I encourage you to savor the months of your engagement as a wonderful time for you as a couple. You’ll have the opportunity to decide what your wedding vision is, what your priorities are, and how to make them a reality.

Perhaps you’re celebrating love with a holiday wedding this year. Your planning is nearly complete, and the big event is almost here. You’re celebrating love as you cross the threshold into your new chapter as a married couple.

No matter what kind of love you’re celebrating this season, pause to enjoy your time together. In the quiet of a winter evening, or surrounded by the lights of season, let your love glow!

Congratulations and Happy Holidays

 in Celebration / Engagement  tagged celebration / engagement / holiday / wedding by

Congratulations and Happy Holidays are going out to all kinds of celebrating people. First, congratulations to the couples who are getting engaged in the remaining days of 2021. You have lots of excitement and decisions waiting for you as you begin to plan for your wedding day in 2022 or even 2023.

Newly engaged couples, you’ll will want to select your wedding date based on availability of your key vendors. Often that list includes venues, photographers and, of course, celebrants. I’m happy to communicate via voice or email with couples as soon as you have your date and venue selected. With just those two pieces of information I can tell you about my availability and we can begin to have meaningful discussions about your ceremony wishes. It is never too early to secure a date on my calendar. But I hate to turn couples away because their preferred date is already taken.

I’d also like to extend happy holidays wishes to everyone celebrating at this time of year. Whether you celebrate Winter Solstice, Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa or simply New Years I’m wishing everyone safe, healthy and happy gatherings. Special wishes go out to couples I married this year as they celebrate their first holiday season together. Whether you’re celebrating a new engagement or a winter holiday, please accept my congratulations and happy holidays wishes. I look forward to posting more in the new year!

The Importance of Celebrating Love

 in Celebration / COVID-19 / Engagement / Love / Weddings  tagged celebrating love / engagement / Valentine's Day / weddings by

The importance of celebrating love cannot be overstated. Even as the pandemic continues to rage in our country, celebrating love with the upcoming Valentine’s Day holiday, with engagements and with weddings this year is crucial to our experience as humans.

If we accept the importance of celebrating love as a major milestone in our lives, we then need to decide how to do that. Couples may celebrate anniversaries of first dates or the first exchange of “I love you’s”. Later in their relationships, proposals made be planned and executed. The period of time between proposal and wedding known as the engagement is another celebration of love.

During the engagement period most couple’s reflect seriously on what a lifetime commitment means to them. They may move in together and make the adjustments necessary to lovingly share space. And of course, they usually plan their wedding.

Wedding plans are going to be challenging again this year due to COVID, and some couples may choose to plan a 2022 wedding hoping to avoid restrictions and worries. No matter how large or small the celebration, no matter how short or long the planning cycle is, the wedding day will arrive. On that day, the couple will stand in front of a few or many of their loved ones and publicly voice their commitment to each other. They will demonstrate the importance of celebrating love in a way uniquely their own because they are unique, their relationship is unique, and the future in front of them is unique.

So with the Valentine’s Day holiday upon us, let’s remember the importance of celebrating love … even when a pandemic is making life extra challenging. Love will prevail, couples will get engaged and marry, and life will go on! So this weekend, lift a toast To life and love!

Now Your Journey Begins

 in Engagement / Wedding planning / Weddings  tagged engagement / wedding / wedding ceremony / wedding planning / wedding vendors by

Now your journey begins. Congratulations! If you became engaged during the 2020 holiday season, the journey to your wedding day is just beginning. No doubt, one of the most frequently asked questions you’ve received as you shared your happy news is, “Have you set a date yet?” Setting your wedding date is indeed one of the first things you’ll want to do, but it hinges primarily on your venue’s availability.

Pretty autumn venue

Once you’ve located a venue that you really like, availability of that space will largely define your choice of wedding dates. With date and venue known, it’s time to start locking in other vendors. If you have certain vendors you want to work with, you’ll want to speak with them early in your planning process. Be aware, too, that there are more photographers and DJs, for example, than celebrants and string quartets around. So prioritize speaking with in demand vendors or those with limited supply.

The complexity of wedding planning can be overwhelming, so finding wedding planner software or a physical planning binder can be helpful. Be aware, though, that the timeframe guidelines listed in these tools may not be accurate for our region. The sooner you can lock down the services and people you want to support you on your wedding day the better.

Sweet ceremony moments
Ring Exchange

Your journey begins with reaching out to many people you do not know, to secure services you may not be familiar with. This can be intimidating until you realize that the people you’ll engage with are each expert in their fields. Feel free to contact them and ask them to guide you through what you need to know. We understand that many couples are planning weddings for the first time, and don’t really know where to start. An initial email or phone call will get the ball rolling. Once you have your wedding date and venue, you have the key information most vendors will need to have before they can tell you if they are available to consider working with you.

If you’re newly engaged enjoy the moment! Take a bit of time to share your happy news with family and friends. Now your journey begins as you jump into wedding planning. Throughout the process remember the reason you’re doing it – you’ve found the love of your life and want to move forward in marriage. With that as the guiding force behind all your plans you’re sure to have a wonderful wedding day that you’ll remember forever. Again, congratulations, and I hope to hear from you when you’re ready to plan to ceremony.

Note: Due to COVID-19, Kathy is booking custom ceremonies only for dates after June 30, 2021. She is available for simple certificate signings until then.

Planning for 2020 Weddings

 in Ceremony / Engagement / Personalization / Venue / Wedding traditions / Wedding Vows / Weddings  tagged engaged / engagement / personalized wedding / wedding ceremony / wedding planning / wedding traditions / weddings by

Planning for 2020 weddings, and beyond, has become a priority task for all the couples who are newly engaged following the recent holiday season. Congratulations again to all of you as you celebrate your engagements and begin the process of figuring out what will come next. No matter who you are, what you envision for your day, where you want it to be held, or who you will enlist to help you with the myriad tasks you will discover as you move forward, this is and will be an exciting time in your life.

The best advice I can offer as you begin planning for 2020 weddings (or any future date) is to decide what 3 to 5 things are really important to you. This will help you focus on where to spend your time, effort and money as you plan for the big day. That doesn’t mean you can ignore all the other aspects of your wedding day. But perhaps you will spend less of your wedding budget on those items, or will enlist the help of family or friends who have talents or experience in those areas.

As you begin your wedding planning process I encourage you to identify your wedding date as soon as possible. Venue availability or key vendor availability will help you select a date, and once you have the date and location there are many more tasks that you can work on.

Remember, too, that wedding traditions are based on hundreds of years of couples getting married. Some may not fit you, and it is more than OK to jettison those that don’t. Maybe you don’t want to be “given away” at your ceremony, call all the single women to the floor for a bouquet toss, or find the garter ritual embarrassing. None of those things have to be part of your wedding day.

Rather, you’ll want to fill your day with moments that reflect you. Perhaps your centerpieces will be board game or book themed because those reflect how you spend your time. Maybe you’ll look for ways to include your family members who have played important roles in your life to date. Or perhaps you’ll place a priority on writing your own vows so the highlight of your ceremony is the two of you making the promises most important to you, in a style that reflects you and your relationship.

It helps to keep all of the above in mind as you begin to define your wedding day. Planning for 2020 weddings (and beyond) will be a big part of your coming months, but remember to take time for the two of you as a couple. Focus on your love that brought you to this place, have fun together doing something NOT wedding related, and enjoy this time in your life.