Finding your officiant isn’t the easiest task, especially if you are looking for a meaningful but non-religious ceremony. Many officiants or celebrants will simply read a basic script with opportunities for you to put in a reading or enter in other special aspects. They get you married, and get it done. Which is great, but part of why we were excited to get married was that we could have a ceremony to declare our love for each other in front of our family and dearest friends. When Max and I started looking for an officiant, we realized that we didn’t want a generic ceremony. We wanted it to be unique to us, to reflect the life that we wanted to live out, and for it embrace the values we hold dear. And we wanted this declaration to be meaningful…  but we didn’t know anything about creating marriage ceremonies.

Luckily, I did know Kate. And I knew Kate was officiating weddings. And I knew that each ceremony she officiated was crafted for the couple she was working with. She has a system of elements that tend to be incorporated into ceremonies, but still creates space for couples to dictate what elements are included and how they show up. Each ceremony is written fresh after chatting and getting to know the couple. So after reaching out and having that first client-intake conversation, Max and I felt confident that she was going to give us exactly what we were nebulously looking for.

THE TAPESTRY OFFICIATING PROCESS.

This wasn’t just because she is a warm, open, and lovely human (I am super biased, but I’m not apologizing for it), it was also because of the questions she asked, both in the meeting and the Getting to Know You Questionnaire she sends to all her clients, as well as the more intense You + How You See Your Partner Questionnaire. The questions she asks get into the core of your relationship: the joy in this moment, the hopes and the dreams for the future, and the foundation it started on. She wants to tell your story within the ceremony, so she gathers all your source material and builds up from there.

Furthermore, she always is looking for feedback and specificity. When Kate sent us her first draft of the ceremony, she ended the email with an invitation for any criticism to help her make it as specific to us as possible. What we received was a beautiful document that told our story. It brought in our challenges and triumphs as well as holding space for our future. It felt like the reflection of our relationship that we were looking for.

THE BEAUTIFUL FINAL PRODUCT.

The feedback I gave was about word choice and ways we could add in elements to bring our family and friends into the ceremony. Later, Kate wrote a whole couple of articles about the ideas we had and the ones she has created with other couples during the pandemic in Meaningful Ideas for Friends + Family and Meaningful Ideas for Those Who Cannot Be Present. But during our meeting, she gave us lots of invitations to bring in as much change and modification as we wanted. This opportunity to provide interactive feedback (and do it live!) was intended to create ownership over the final ceremony for the two of us. Rather than arriving with her story about us, Kate wanted to tell our story, together, which we would then share with our loved ones. We discussed the promises that were written within the “I Dos” and ring ceremony, making sure that the words we were repeating actually represented what we believed and wanted to promise.

So after a productive and detailed conversation about the first draft, she sent us over a final draft. We approved it. And when it was read aloud at our elopement, I was thankful to have gone through this process with her. We wouldn’t have changed a thing. During the whole process, Kate made us feel like we were crafting the ceremony together, channeling vague ideas of “meaningful” and “reflective” into actual words. It is a lovely document that I will always treasure. 

If we had had more concrete ideas about what we wanted to incorporate, I know that she would have embraced them wholeheartedly. Her easy going nature made her a breeze to work with. I know I could not have asked for a better experience.

— Kelleen, Tapestry Content Manager (+ Bride!)