Vendor Spotlight | BodaMaestra

Maestra, in Spanish, means masterpiece, and that’s just what Esme Krahn wants your wedding--boda--to be. Esme was working full-time, coordinating weddings on the side, in Mexico when she first met a man named Joe, from Virginia, through online dating. Their initial conversations bloomed into a long-distance, cross-continental relationship that culminated in a Washington, D.C. proposal.

A lifelong Catholic and a lover of the Church and of her native Hispanic culture, Esme channeled her college event coordination experience into wedding planning the first few times she assisted with Hispanic Catholic weddings, and was awakened to a God-given gift. Now residing stateside with her husband, Esme earned her wedding planning certification through Weddings Beautiful Worldwide and transitioned her career into full-time wedding coordination and design. She’s served the D.C. Metro area through BodaMaestra, offering full and partial wedding planning or management plans, for over a decade.

Click through BodaMaestra’s gallery of recent weddings and Instagram feed and you’ll find a range of gorgeous celebrations Esme has designed and coordinated for couples and venues of every origin; she happily takes on clients of any background. For Hispanic and American couples alike, her blog is a mine of practical information for brides and grooms seeking to plan a spiritually and visually beautiful day that exudes gratitude to God and to family and friends, with pieces on everything from creating an initial mood board to preserving your wedding cake to choosing the Catholic wedding readings best suited to you as a couple.

Yet Esme's specialty, the need she seeks to meet and the call she has answered in the wedding industry, is guiding Latin American couples in honoring the traditions of their heritage, through a nuptial Mass and reception that reflect the customs and rich culture of their families’ home countries. Latin America is a traditionally Catholic region with a uniquely exuberant sensibility when it comes to worship, dress, music, and other aspects of any celebration. The new union of man and wife is certainly cause to celebrate, and Esme’s ability to transform these aspects into something visible and beautiful in the particular and very needed niche she’s been called to, something guests can sense and be drawn into the the heart of God, is so inspiring to us.

Ultimately, it’s this focus on the Father’s love, goodness, and beauty that anchors all of Esme’s work and her client experience. She willingly and joyfully prays for each of her couples as they prepare to walk down the aisle, and encourages them to look beyond the wedding day as they complete their plans. Any wedding professional offers a service in the business sense of the word, but it’s this active sense of intercession, preparation, and grounding in virtue that makes Catholic wedding coordination, particularly BodaMaestra’s, distinctive--abounding in generosity and service in the truest sense.

From Esme: It is an honor to experience a couple's wedding day, as well as their preparation journey as I get to coach them and advise them on how to handle different situations. The beauty of marriage resides in becoming one and goes far beyond a one-day celebration. It is a longtime journey where the ultimate goal is to fulfill your vocation as a married couple and future parents, with God among you. To this day, I have helped dozens of couples, American and Latinos and anything in between!

I like to be there for my clients. At the outset of each coordination process, I hold discovery meetings where I find out what's truly important to the bride and groom. No couple is alike, so I take time to find out what each one’s main priorities are, what fears are hunting them and the overall feel they are looking for on their wedding day. My couples and I are a team where everyone has responsibilities and decisions to make. Our planning meetings are productive and a stress reliever--by the time the wedding day rolls around, the only thing they have to worry about is each other! My couples can trust me 100% that I will troubleshoot any day-of issues and will execute their plans as agreed. Each day is accompanied with a prayer for their life as a couple and for our team's abilities to shine and perform flawlessly.

BodaMaestra has been featured on United with Love, Ruffled, Borrowed & Blue, and Emmaline Bride.