First look!
July 2026
There’s a a wedding day trend known as the “first look”, an intimate, private pause when a couple sees one another before the ceremony begins. It’s filled with anticipation, tenderness, and the quiet recognition of everything that has led them to this moment.
As a celebrant, I have my own version of a first look. It happens not at the wedding, but in the quiet unfolding of a couple’s story, when I first open their questionnaires and begin to step into their relationship.
Today was one of those moments.
As I read through their words, I found myself drawn into the small details and emotions that shape their relationship and the everyday gestures, the turning points, the memory of when they knew ‘this is the one’. It’s a behind-the-scenes glimpse, one that no guest will fully see, but one that becomes the foundation for everything I will hold with them on their wedding day. In this early encounter, I begin to sense the tone of their ceremony, the rhythms of their story, and the threads that will be woven into something meaningful.
There is something sacred in being entrusted with this first telling. Before vows are spoken aloud, before the rings are exchanged, I am invited into the quiet interior of a relationship. I listen closely, to notice what matters, and to begin shaping a narrative that reflects not just who they are, but how they love. It’s a responsibility I carry with care, knowing that what begins here will eventually be shared publicly and witnessed by their friends and family.
I’m only at the beginning of this ceremony, and already I feel that familiar spark and the quiet certainty that this story will unfold into something beautiful.
Every couple has a first look.
This is mine, and it never loses its magic.
Sweet Spot
June 2026
I exchanged an email today with a bride-to-be. We’re about five weeks out from the wedding, and she needed to confirm a few final ceremony details. Up until now, she’s been joyful and fully engaged in the co-creation process (she’s a writer herself) and genuinely delighted by what we’ve been shaping together. But today, her tone felt tight and a little strained.
I had the clear thought – we’ve moved beyond the sweet spot. It’s time to wrap this up and put a bow on this wedding ceremony.
There is a quiet “sweet spot” in the journey of co-creating a wedding ceremony, an in-between space where the energy is alive, but not yet overwhelmed. Too early, and the ceremony can feel abstract, like a story not yet fully lived into. Too late, and the process risks being crowded out by timelines, seating charts, and last-minute logistics. But in a middle space, about 2-3 months before the wedding, something powerful happens. The couple has gathered enough shared experience through planning to begin shaping meaning, yet still has the spaciousness to reflect, imagine, and feel.
This is when the ceremony begins to take on a pulse of its own.
In this liminal stretch of time, there is both movement and clarity.
The threshold is no longer theoretical, it is felt.
Couples can begin to visualize themselves within the ceremony, almost hear their vows spoken aloud, to sense the shift in identity from “partners” to “married.” There is an emerging coherence, a readiness to name what matters.
As a Life-Cycle Celebrant, I meet them here, in this energized middle space, where we harness that momentum and craft a ceremony that it is not only thoughtful, but deeply embodied. It becomes less about assembling parts and more about revealing something already unfolding: the story of who they are becoming, together.
Writing love … one song at a time.
May 2026
There’s something quietly magical that happens before I write a single word of a ceremony. I was first inspired to try this after speaking my Vancouver Island colleague, Life-Cycle Celebran™, Frank Wall. Frank spoke about using music as a way of entering into a person/couple’s world when he is writing a ceremony. Since that interview, I’ve begun asking couples to share songs that feel like them: what they cook dinner to, what they road trip with, what brings them back to each other after a long day. I gather these into a playlist, press play, and let it loop as I begin drafting their ceremony.
Over time, the music starts to do something that even the most thoughtful questionnaire can’t quite reach. It softens the edges of formality and invites me into the emotional landscape of their relationship. I begin to notice patterns like the tenderness in acoustic tracks, the joy in upbeat dance rhythms, the nostalgia tucked into older songs.
Recently, one couple included Lady Gaga’s “You and I,” and I found myself returning to it again and again. On my first read of their questionnaire, I hadn’t fully grasped the depth of their long, back-and-forth journey but as I listened, something clicked. There was a grit and devotion in the song, especially in that repeated pull of “sit back down,” that revealed a love shaped by leaving and returning, by tension and choosing each other anyway.
Suddenly, I could hear and see a layer of their relationship that hadn’t yet made it onto the page.
Listening on repeat becomes a kind of devotion to their love story. It allows me to write from a place of connection rather than construction. I’m not just assembling words that sound beautiful. It’s more like translating a feeling that’s already alive between them.
Music gives me access to the spaces between their answers and the emotional texture of their bond.
When I finally sit down to write, it feels less like starting from scratch and more like continuing a conversation that’s already been unfolding in the melody.
