"Beauty pierces her heart and draws her into the sacred. She wants not only her wedding, but her marriage to reflect this in every way: through awe-inspiring liturgy, decor, and photographs, each infused, above all, with the radiant beauty only made manifest in sincere holiness. No matter her past, she has a love for all that is pure. She desires nothing more or less than to make a complete gift of herself. She chases fearlessly after virtue, knowing excellence is the path to true freedom, and freedom is for love. Deeply, profoundly, she is in love..."

Bridget + KC | Traditional Christmas Octave Wedding

June 19, 2019/ Editor Spoken Bride

During a carpool to a retreat at a dinnertime pit stop, Bridget and KC met in a Wendy's checkout line as sophomores in college.

During the retreat, they bonded over The Food Network, dishwashing, and prayer. These conversations sparked a wonderful friendship. They looked forward to running into each other at their St. Paul University Catholic Center, and KC walked Bridget to her car each evening to make sure she was safe.

One afternoon after daily Mass, KC asked her on a date. Bridget thought about how much she appreciated him asking in person, and specifically "on a date" before enthusiastically saying yes. They went to a pumpkin patch and corn maze and were amazed to spend six hours together without a single lull in conversation.

After some prayer and discernment, they officially started dating a few weeks later.

From the Bride: For the next two years our “ongoing date” was trying to visit as many churches as we could. At each location we prayed in, we picked up a rock from outside the church and numbered it. Looking back on these rocks, we like to think about the churches and the prayers they represent. They are the rocks we have built our relationship with, like the reflection in Matthew 7.

During this time, I was able to spend two weeks visiting KC while he studied abroad. We went to Italy for Holy Week and spent Good Friday in Assisi. We even attended the Easter Vigil in St Peter's. Being in Rome for Easter was such an amazing opportunity for prayer, joy, and discernment for our relationship’s future.

While we were long-distance, we also scheduled holy hours together, taking into account the time difference, so that we could still pray together. Being united in prayer made the distance more bearable.

KC proposed in September 2016 at St Mary’s of Pine Bluff church. The proposal was at the end of a scavenger hunt for letters that each included a puzzle piece. When I found him in front of the altar he said, "I think you have some puzzle pieces. We work best together as a team, will you help me put it together?"

The puzzle read "Will you marry me?" and KC asked me, "Bridget, would you do me the honor of allowing me to love you into heaven?" I obviously said "yes!”

Our engagement seemed like a long one, but the whole time it was apparent that Christ was still working on our hearts and helping us to become better versions of ourselves so we could be the best spouses for each other. Every aspect of our marriage prep highlighted areas we still needed to grow personally and spiritually. We named Sts. Francis and Claire patrons of our engagement.

Planning a wedding together was so much fun, and I was very excited to have KC's enthusiastic help in the process, especially with the nuptial Mass.

Our main goal and theme of our Mass was "verso l'alto" (an Italian phrase made famous by Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati that means “to the top” or “towards the heights”). We wanted everything to point to Christ and to give glory to God.

When meeting with our main celebrant, Fr. Eric Sternberg, he asked us, "What is our goal here? Have a beautiful Mass and a fun party, or knock everyone’s socks off by being a tool of evangelization and praise the Most High God?" We laughed a little, not really seeing the difference, and said "both?" He chuckled a little and responded, "right answer, I am so excited."

We knew we were lucky to be married at St. Paul’s, the university chapel where our relationship began and grew. Additionally, we told Fr. Eric the more smells, bells, and gold we could incorporate, the better. Our wedding was planned to take place within the octave of Christmas, so why not? Not only were we receiving a sacrament, we were also celebrating Christ's birth!

My family has been blessed to have many priest friends, several of whom are godfathers to my siblings, so naturally they had to be included in the Mass. The total number of celebrants came to seven, plus a deacon. We had hoped to have Bishop Morlino there too, a good friend of my family, but we were not able to extend an invitation before his passing in November. Our Mass was served by several seminarian friends and two of my brothers.

KC and I wanted to make sure there was a lot of symbolism and tradition in the Mass, even if only the two of us noticed or knew about it.

For example, both of our rings are custom-made. KC’s ring was crafted with a band of gold from his mom's old wedding ring and set between two bands of silver from her purity ring. His growth and spiritual life was kindled by his mother. Now it is my responsibility to support and care for him in this vocation.

My engagement ring has his mom's diamond from her same old wedding band, and my wedding band has fifteen tiny diamonds that I associate with a number of spiritual references: the fifteen prayers of St Bridget, my patron saint, the fifteen original mysteries of the rosary, and the fourteen stations of the cross, plus the resurrection.

My bridal colors we also chosen for religious symbolism: burgundy for the bridesmaids’ dresses and groomsmen's ties with gold as an accent. Not only was our wedding within the octave of Christmas (and those are both great Christmas colors), it was on the Feast of the Holy Innocents, and we decided on red for those precious martyrs. Shades of red also symbolized devotion to the Sacred Heart, which runs through our family and social circle.

KC and I had a candle lit in the sanctuary with Bishop Morlino's photo in memory of him, and our recessional hymn, “O God Beyond All Praising,” was partially chosen with him in mind, since it was one of his favorites.

We also memorized our vows, rather than repeating after the priest. KC and I wanted to make sure our vows were ones that we knew forward and backward and fully understood what they meant. It was a little weird to practice our vows with each other in the months before our wedding, so we replaced "husband" and "wife" in the first line with "friend" while we practiced.

At our wedding, we both almost said “friend,” and it was funny for the two of us, even though no one else knew! But it was very worth it, and we still hold hands once in a while and repeat our vows to each other.

The Mass was celebrated ad orientem, and we incorporated many Latin responses. Readings were chosen with Theology of the Body in mind and as much foreshadowing of the heavenly wedding feast of the Lamb as possible. The gospel reading (Jn 2:1-11) is one of our favorites because it contains the last recorded words of Mary: "Do whatever He tells you." They are a good command for us to remember as we begin our life together following God's plan.

We each had a holy hour the morning of the wedding and went to confession the night before. My father walked with me to the bride and groom’s "first look." KC and I wanted to process into the church together, so in order to still give my dad the opportunity to "give the bride away," we had him escort me then.

After our first look, my parents gathered with us to share a prayer they had written for us. KC and I read our letters to each other and prayed together for a brief, special moment. Then, just before starting the processional, my bridesmaids prayed over me.

The Mass was a dream. Everything went smoothly; our musicians (all music majors and two opera/musical theater majors) were phenomenal. KC says that our friend Ben put Andrea Bocelli to shame with his Ave Maria for our Marian consecration, which was the final day of our 33 Days to Morning Glory renewal. There was so much joy, peace, and excitement for both of us as we knelt and prayed after communion.

One of the priests told us afterwards that seeing the joy and radiance on our faces as we prayed gave him so much hope for the future and deepened his flame of love for his own bride, the Church.

We didn't share our first kiss at the altar. Rather, we snuck off for a few moments alone in one of the spiritual direction rooms in the basement of the Newman Center. Those moments were so important for us to share our joy, prayers, and thoughts from Mass and to take a deep breath before family photos and being passed around from guest to guest the rest of the evening.

Our honeymoon was in Italy, where we made another pilgrimage to Assisi to thank Sts. Francis and Claire for their intercession in our engagement and to Rome for the Sposi Novelli blessing.

Wedding planning can be a lot of fun if you are striving to have a celebration that reflects goodness, truth, and beauty. KC and I encountered our own share of spiritual warfare, but because God always comes through on his promises, we received many, many comments from our priests and our guests about how peaceful everything and everyone was.

We could feel that peace too. When we trust the Lord, really trust him to take care of things and to have a better plan than we have, everything works out, and it brings joy and light to other people's personal and spiritual lives.

June 12, 2019

Jenny + Sam | Summertime Texas Wedding

June 12, 2019/ Editor Spoken Bride

“Through desire, [God] enlarges our soul and by expanding it he increases its capacity for receiving him.” These words from Pope Benedict XVI echoed in Jenny’s heart as she prepared to marry her beloved Sam.

Jenny and Sam’s love story is one of virtuous patience and beautiful triumph, the rich fruits of Jenny’s trust while suffering a deep desire and longing to begin her vocation--for marriage.

Through their mutual devotion to their faith and love of Mother Mary, Jenny and Sam were married on a bright, summertime day in Texas.

From the Bride: It was a struggle for me to deeply desire marriage and not enter my vocation until I was 34 (and 1/2) years old. I had already watched many of my friends get engaged, married, and start a family. I did not know why God would have me suffer with such a deep desire for the vocation of marriage and not fulfill it.

I didn’t know it, but he was working out everything for the good--it just wasn't time yet. Through my suffering, my relationship with God became stronger and stronger. I even traveled to be a missionary teacher abroad for two years in the hope that maybe God wanted to work in me more before he revealed my husband to me.

When I returned from missionary work, I dated a little and put myself out there, going to young adult retreats and social functions at my church. But it seemed that many times, as most singles will complain, "the good guys are all gone."

Finally, after a summer of getting my heart broken and many unsuccessful dates, I decided to try one last round of online dating. I had joined an app when I came across Sam's profile. I thought he was cute, and he made some funny comments. He also said he was Catholic. What?! We connected and hit it off.

I quickly discovered that our morals and values as well as our devotion to our Catholic faith aligned perfectly. We also found out we had many common interests, like running. On our first date, he told me he was looking to get married. Wow, I thought. This was a first. I knew he was special, and we quickly prayed about the next steps. Before long, we knew the Lord was bringing us together for a purpose.

What I loved about Sam was his patience with me. Throughout our courtship he showed me the man he truly was. Although we lived across town from each other, we made it a point to attend Mass together every Sunday. We enjoyed attending confession and both had a devotion to Mary, Our Mother, and prayed the rosary often. We truly believe she helped guide us on our journey.

Sam planned the perfect proposal; it was just him and I. We had gotten coffee, and I was getting stressed with work and felt unsure where our future was heading. He told me that Mary would make it all better and show us the way, so we prayed the rosary together. In that moment I knew Sam was truly the one the Lord had planned for me. I prayed “not my will but your will, Lord, but I really like him!” When I opened my eyes, Sam was on his knees, and he asked me to be his wife. God's perfect plan was unfolding in front of me, and I was overjoyed to start the next chapter with this man.

Our engagement was a whirlwind since I was a teacher who was off work in the summer. We were eager to start our lives together, and we knew we wanted a summertime wedding.

But that meant we had only six months to plan a wedding for three hundred guests! Although it was stressful at times, Sam and I really enjoyed our Pre-Cana classes and preparing for marriage. We learned so much about each other and our faith, and we know it prepared us for the sacrament.

Our wedding day was the best day of our lives.

Pope Benedict XVI, said “Man was created for greatness–for God himself; he was created to be filled by God. But his heart is too small for the greatness to which it is destined. It must be stretched. By delaying his gift, God strengthens our desire; through desire, he enlarges our soul and by expanding it he increases its capacity for receiving him.”

My entire life has been a process of God enlarging my soul and increasing my heart’s capacity to receive the gift of my marriage on July 21, 2018.

Through suffering, a lot of waiting, prayer, brokenness, redemption, and through the Eucharist, Christ was preparing me for Sam. He was preparing me to say my own “fiat” like Mary did (Luke 1:38) when he offered me the wonderful gift of my husband and our new journey together.

My mom was in charge of most of the planning for the reception, and Sam and I planned the ceremony. We wanted a beautiful, holy Mass and a joyful reception with all our family and friends. We were married in Sam's childhood church and included many Catholic traditions such as the lazo in the liturgy. We knew from the start we would also include the presentation of flowers to Mother Mary. After we prayed together and laid flowers at the foot of Mary, we gave a special rose to our mothers.

Sam and I found out during the wedding process that we have many of the same favorite Catholic hymns, like the communion hymn “Taste and See,” and incorporated them into the Mass. The priest gave a wonderful homily about the love of Jesus and the great sacrament of marriage.

When I saw Sam standing at the altar, all I remember is thanking Jesus. And as I walked with my father down the aisle, carrying my new mother-in-law’s rosary as my “something borrowed,” I smiled as I gazed at Sam, who was crying. It was a beautiful moment, and I felt so close to Christ.

The reception afterwards was a night to remember! We had delicious food and great entertainment. We did the Grand March (a German tradition) that got everyone out on the dance floor. Then came our first dance. Sam and I love to two-step to country music, and it was a special moment as all of our family and friends surrounded us to watch us have our first dance as husband and wife.

There was pure joy and peace the whole day of our wedding, and it remains even now in our marriage. Christ is so good and faithful!

June 05, 2019

Meg + Tim | Vintage Italian-Inspired Wedding

June 05, 2019/ Editor Spoken Bride

Meg and Tim deeply desired that their wedding be a witness to the beauty of the sacrament and of their beloved Catholic faith. Incorporating their love for the Latin Mass into the Novus Ordo liturgy, they gave their guests an experience of grace, tradition, and God’s enduring love.

Their love story is one of online dating, adventure, and homemade limoncello.

From the Bride: Tim and I met on Catholic Match in late 2014, but we didn't meet in person until June 2015. We finally stood face to face on a softball field a few days before I left for a new adventure in Italy and Tim left for a camping trip in Quetico, Canada. But we didn’t know the biggest adventure of our lives was around the corner.

After Tim survived a canoe capsizing in Canadian waters (rough stuff), and I endured Italian wine and culture (even rougher), we returned to the U.S. and began forming a friendship founded upon a mutual love of good music, friendly sports competition, and our Catholic faith.

Our devotion to Our Lady, St. Therese of Lisieux, and St. John Paul the Great have been at the core of our relationship even into marriage. We just welcomed our first child, a daughter, on November 11 of last year. We named her Teresa "Tessa" Rose after the Little Flower.

Tim and I knew from the beginning that we wanted our wedding day to be about Christ and his Mother, our families, and being a beautiful witness for the Catholic faith. We had grown in our faith life separately and together, but we were excited to share the Father's love with our guests as well.

I grew up attending the Latin Mass, and knew I wanted our nuptial Mass to reflect many of the traditions from the Tridentine Mass. So we planned a Latin Novus Ordo Mass that was a beautiful mix of old and new traditions.

I will never forget what our priest, Father Nathan Caswell, said during his homily: “You don't know the beauty and mystery of the good times and the hard times that await.” It made me all the more excited for the vows we would be exchanging just moments later.

It was really important to us to include Psalm 34, "I will bless the Lord at all times" into the liturgy. It echoes how we want to live our marriage; through the good and the bad, we will bless the Lord. The gospel reading was equally important because we saw our nuptial Mass as an opportunity to evangelize. We chose John 5:12-16 to share Christ's message:

“This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father. It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you.”

The aesthetic of our wedding was meant to echo a vintage, summertime Italian day. We wanted it to be reminiscent of the summer Tim and I met. Only a few days after our meeting, we continued communicating while I was in Italy, a beautiful, romantic country where I couldn't help but think that Tim and I had a bright future together.

In keeping with our vintage theme, my dress had short sleeves, an ivory hue, delicate details, and many buttons. My shoes were a vintage heel and were my "something blue." My necklace had a gold chain that held an aquamarine heart and was my “something borrowed.” Just two months after they began dating, my dad had given it to my mom, which is also when they were engaged! More than thirty years later, they are still going strong.

As I was getting ready the morning of the wedding, I knew I'd have trouble bending down in my form-flattering dress to strap my shoes, but my younger brother was at the ready. He helped me strap them in a loving, organic moment that I will remember forever. His simple act of service started the day out right.

Our reception was held at the Old Towne Hall in Crystal Lake, Illinois. It was the place I had envisioned hosting a wedding reception at ever since I had been there for a swing dancing social years earlier. It was quaint and vintage-y in so many ways. The tin, scalloped ceiling especially was our favorite element.

To further include the Italian theme and my Italian heritage, Tim and I made our own limoncello, an Italian liqueur made from lemons, vodka, and sugar, as favors for our guests. I designed the label and wrote out tags that read "Grazie!" That’s Italian for "thank you!"

A few close family members brought homemade desserts to share as well, which added a special touch. A family favorite is “baklawa” (similar to the Greek dessert baklava). My husband has Iraqi roots, and this was a special nod to his mother's side of the family.

But perhaps the greatest surprise of the day was my two sisters' performance of the "Sisters" skit from White Christmas. They really kicked off the reception with a bang. I had no idea it was coming, and I laughed and laughed, all while singing along with them. My bouquet landing on one of the chandeliers during the toss is probably the second biggest surprise of the day--if not the most embarrassing! We still laugh about it!

In the days, and especially the night, before the wedding, I was praying for peace and to be fully present during my wedding day. I woke up on June 10 and felt absolutely at peace. I experienced incredible joy the whole day, and I knew my prayer had been answered by the Holy Spirit. Ask, and you shall receive.

I felt the closest I have ever felt to our Lord as I knelt with my husband in the sanctuary. Our guests were so thoughtful, and their support was so important to us on that day, but it seemed like everything melted away. In that moment, it was just God, Tim, and I on the altar.

May 29, 2019

Fabiola + Cole | Vatican City Basilica Wedding

May 29, 2019/ Editor Spoken Bride

Gratitude, love, and faith can exist in the midst of profound suffering, through God’s miraculous grace. This is what Fabiola experienced when she faced her mother’s unexpected diagnosis, two years after meeting her future husband, Cole.

A couple years later, to her great joy, her mother sat, beautiful and glowing, at her daughter’s wedding. Fabiola and Cole’s unspeakably beautiful nuptial Mass took place in St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City.

From the Bride: Meeting Cole was a gift from God. I met him at a time of my life when I was worry-free, in college, always smiling, and thanking the Lord for so many blessings.

Four years later, I am still striving to live that way, but life has gotten harder. Two years after we started dating, my beautiful mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. I prayed for strength to help my mom fight, and, of course, for healing.

I have always been a girl of strong faith, but this was incredibly difficult. And in the midst of it, Cole was there to remind me, "Fab, hold on to your faith. God's got this." He was right. God answered my prayers and sent me strength, and that strength was through Cole. He was, and is, my rock.

Cole proposed in front of my whole family, and we got married in the most beautiful place in the world: St. Peter's Basilica. The doctors were unsure if my mother would attend our wedding, but I knew in my heart she would be there, and she was.

Our ceremony was so incredibly beautiful. During the Mass, a light shined on my mom the whole time, and the amount of love in the church was breathtaking. The Holy Spirit was alive in all of our hearts.

The celebration was in English, Spanish, and Italian, our three languages. The priest who celebrated our marriage was Father Claudio Barbut, who we met at a healing Mass for my mom. His homily was all about Christ living within us.

We had almost 200 guests attend from all over the world. There were many different beliefs and religions in one room, but every guest held the crucifix that Fr. Claudio handed around before I arrived. When I saw the cross with a beautiful prayer in the hands of my family and friends, my heart was filled with joy.

Fr. Claudio gifted us a wooden cross which we held during the ceremony. Cole and I kissed the cross and promised to keep Christ the center of our marriage forever. When I close my eyes and relive that day, I smile and thank God for every second of it.

I felt so much gratitude. For my mom and how beautiful she was. To know she was right there with me. It was the perfect start to my marriage, and it made Cole and I thankful for every blessing that comes our way.

He knew Christ was the center of my world when he met me, and now Christ is the center of our marriage. At the end of the day, instead of asking for something, I have learned to start every prayer with “thank you.”

We make plans, but God has a perfect plan, and we're ready for what he has planned for us. Marriage is not perfect, and life is not perfect, but when Cole and I look at each other and love each other as Jesus would, we can overcome anything.

Photography: Aberrazioni Cromatiche Studio | Church: St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City | Reception: Casina di Macchia Madama | Flowers: Dordas Flowers

May 22, 2019

Resi + Jason | Fairytale-Inspired Filipino Wedding

May 22, 2019/ Editor Spoken Bride

For Resi and Jason, what began as an unlikely online match turned into something so much more.

By the time they reached the altar, their courtship had transformed both their spiritual lives and taught them a more Christ-like meaning of love and marriage. Their wedding reflected the beauty of the sacrament, a deep appreciation for their families’ culture, and the beginning of their vocational path to heaven.

From the Bride: My husband, Jason, and I met in one of the most unexpected, probably “least-Christian” ways: through Tinder, the dating app! Fortunately, he was the first and only person I ever met online.

I am a “cradle Catholic,” but if it wasn’t for my husband and his family, I might not be Catholic today. After going through another breakup, I prayed to God for someone to love, but only if he thought I was ready. I felt that I was. Not long after that prayer, I met the man who would become my husband.

They say not to talk about religion on the first date, but we did. I was exploring non-denominational Christianity, and Jason was a lukewarm Catholic. In spite of this, he invited me to go to Mass with him one Sunday a few weeks into our courtship.

I had not been to Mass in a long time, but I agreed. It was the first time I had been invited to church by a man I was dating. It would be the first of many Masses together at the church where we would be married, but I didn’t know that at the time.

His older sister was also a big influence in my return to the Catholic faith. She introduced me to the book Rediscover Catholicism by Matthew Kelly that sparked a fire in my search for truth. Since then we have all been growing together in understanding and love of the faith we were raised in.

Jason proposed on Christmas Eve 2016 while we were opening gifts with his family, two and a half years into our relationship. My family was unable to make it to dinner, but I was on the phone with them immediately after it happened. About a year and a half later, we were married on May 12, 2018 at St. Michael’s Catholic Church in Poway, California.

The theme for our wedding was “simple, elegant, and fun.” We are both huge Disney fans, so we wanted it to have a fairytale touch without overspending on insignificant details. We both come from large Filipino families as well, so we had a grand celebration with around 220 guests!

I chose two matrons of honor, and my husband had two best men. All four were equally special to us and played a significant role in our relationship. My six bridesmaids wore floor length burgundy dresses, and the flower girls wore ivory and gold. Jason’s six groomsmen picked burgundy-patterned neckties, and our fathers wore black bow ties. My handsome groom decided on a blend with a burgundy-patterned bow tie.

I found my wedding dress on an unexpected shopping trip with my sister-in-law. It was love at first sight!

Women my size, petite (4’11”), are commonly advised not to wear ball gowns because they tend to overwhelm us. But this is not always so. I almost didn’t try on a ball gown, but my stylish future-sister-in-law insisted I try one on for fun--and how fun it was to wear! I was debating between that and a figure flattering dress when the stylist came out with a big ruffled ball gown skirt to wear over a sequined mermaid style dress. It was the best of both worlds!

I wore the overskirt for the ceremony until the start of the reception. I truly felt like a bride and a princess. It was so big that after taking pre-ceremony pictures with it, I had to remove it, take it with me, and put it on again at church.

The shoes I chose to wear were also special. They were the same ones I wore for my 26th birthday, the day Jason and I officially became a couple.

Jason is the last of his siblings to get married. We were so blessed that our celebrant, Father Mel Monreal, is a close friend of his family; he celebrated all my husband’s siblings’ nuptial Masses as well.

Choosing how to walk down the aisle was another decision that took some thought. I wanted my entrance to represent coming to the altar of my own free will, but I also wanted to have both my parents walk beside me. We decided to, literally, meet in the middle. I went solo for the first half down the aisle and was then accompanied by my parents the rest of the way.

Jason and I did not do a pre-ceremony “first look.” While neither of us shed a tear during the procession, the moment we said our vows was a different story.

Our priest allowed us to step into the sanctuary so the entire congregation could more easily witness our vows. As I looked across to the man who was about to become my husband, my throat began to tighten. Realizing that this was the moment we would become one flesh, I was barely able to talk. I could see the emotion in my husband’s eyes as they began to water, just like mine. It was truly a beautiful moment.

At the beginning of our engagement, I learned about Theology of the Body. This completely changed my understanding of marriage and sexuality. My husband was reluctant to accept the theology at first, but after our Engaged Encounter retreat his heart opened, and we vowed to follow the life Christ wanted for us in marriage.

And so, we came to the altar on our wedding day with a deeper understanding of the vows were making to each other and to God. We still remind each other often of these vows and what they mean as we continue to grow deeper in our faith and in our marriage.

Jason and I had a traditional, Filipino Catholic wedding, which means we included coins, a cord, and veil ceremonies. I don’t think many people knew this, but the cord and veil we used were the same ones my parents used in their wedding 31 years ago! The thirteen coins, which are shiny, gold Philippine currency, were given to us by one of my matrons of honor; she had an extra set from her wedding. All of these are symbolic of the everlasting bond, unity, fidelity, and wealth and prosperity (in all forms) that we promise to each other.

After the nuptial Mass, when our coordinators showed us the ballroom before the reception began, I surprised my husband with my form-fitting dress. It was like having another “first look!”

I surprised everyone else during our grand entrance as we shimmied down the hall to Bruno Mars’ “Marry You.” After our entrance, Jason’s aunt led us in a thoughtful, extemporaneous prayer before dinner. We wanted food to be served during everyone’s toasts so our guests wouldn’t be hungry.

The most memorable thing about the speeches was that they all recognized how God has been at the center of our relationship. My dad even recognized my sister-in-law for playing such a significant role in my spiritual growth. By the end, there was no dry eye left in the reception hall.

Unlike most weddings, our first dance didn’t immediately follow our grand entrance. We decided to wait until after all the toasts and father-daughter/mother-son dances so we could open the dance floor to everyone. It was a nice transition to go from formal dining to dancing.

Before the wedding, Jason and I took dance lessons and modified the choreography to match the music cut by our DJ. We had two different songs: a slow song, “Beautiful As You” by Jim Brickman ft. Wayne Brandy, followed by the upbeat song, “Can’t Stop The Feeling” by Justin Timberlake. My husband is known for his dance moves, and he surprised me with a solo dance in between the transition of the two songs. After all the stressful planning, it was fun to have a little surprise!

Our wedding day was such a meaningful, joyful occasion, and it was only the beginning. It went far beyond the aesthetics and making a promise to love one person for the rest of our lives; our wedding wasn’t just about choosing another person to “get through life with.” It was the first day we vowed to lead each other to heaven.

Additionally, our wedding wasn’t just about us. It was about our community and our faith. Our families are now joined together, and we have a whole army of people to lift each other up! In choosing a sacramental marriage, we promised to be an effective sign of God’s love, and we are constantly learning how to love each other as Jesus loves us. In doing so, we hope that when people see us, they are directed towards Jesus and his love for each of us. It is my hope that our faith in God will continue to be deeply reflected in our marriage.

Videographer - Blue Tiger Films

May 15, 2019

Brooke + Austin | Timeless Autumnal Nebraska Wedding

May 15, 2019/ Editor Spoken Bride

“If there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

From the beginning of their romantic relationship into their new marriage, Brooke and Austin have strove to live in the wisdom of Scripture and the beauty of the sacraments. They know that saying “yes” to a strong relationship with the Lord is a “yes” to greater intimacy as husband and wife.

Their elegant, timeless wedding, centered around the sacrifice of the Mass, shows the joy of a community celebrating the union of this abundantly blessed couple.

From the Bride: Austin and I travelled in the same college friend group for three years. During our junior year, he showed up at my front door and asked to take me out on a date. He wanted to get to know me better.

I knew in that moment that Austin was something special, because you don't see men pursue a woman like that too often.

It was important to incorporate our faith from the very beginning. Throughout our relationship, we went to Mass together on Sundays and at least once during the week. Austin even shared his testimony with me one night and explained that I inspired him in his faith, and that I made him want to be a better man of God. I told him he inspired the exact same aspiration in me.

And so, we got engaged.

Austin and I wanted the Mass to be the center and most important part of our wedding day. I had not been living in Omaha long before we got engaged, so I had not yet found my home parish. I was looking for a place that felt like home and radiated God's presence. I knew after the first Mass I attended at St. Robert's that it was the church community I had been seeking. It would also be the parish where Austin and I would be married. They welcomed us with open arms.

Before the wedding began, the bridal party and parents gathered for a prayer led by our celebrant, Fr. Matya. The readings we chose were not common readings for a nuptial Mass, but were readings that spoke to our values as a couple that we wanted to build our married life on.

The gospel was Philippians 4:4-9, which includes a verse we both love: "Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things."

The most special part of the Mass was our time after communion praying and asking for Mary’s intercession. We truly felt the presence of God in that moment and prayed that Mary would guide us along our new path as husband and wife.

Our wedding style was elegant and classic. Chic while remaining traditional. I am not all about glitz and glam, but I love a simple, timeless look. Because the wedding was in the fall, I chose a color theme with darker tones and greenery touches. I focused on the "burnt mauve" color and gold accents.

Looking back, our wedding day was another huge reminder of how much God has blessed Austin and I. One memorable thing we did happened during the reception. We stood in the back of the room and looked out at everyone celebrating our marriage. It was a day spent with all our loved ones supporting us during this special time.

Austin is the man I have prayed for my entire life. Actually, he's even better than the man I prayed for. I asked God for a faithful, loving husband, and God sent me that in Austin--and more. We are constantly striving to be better stewards of God’s grace and learning how to carry out his plan for us every day. We have learned the challenges it brings, but Austin and I have fought through them together.

The biggest challenge we have encountered is figuring out how to pray together, not settling for less in our faith lives, or becoming distracted away from time with God. We pushed past this challenge by reading a spiritual resource every day together and reflecting on it. Our favorite readings include the Bible (of course!), Three to Get Married by Fulton Sheen, My Daily Bread, and Fr. Mike Schmitz’s podcast.

Austin and I know if we choose to say "yes" to having a strong relationship with God, we will also feel closer to one another and become better versions of ourselves.

May 10, 2019

Wedding Week Hospitality Tips

May 10, 2019/ Editor Spoken Bride

CARISSA PLUTA

Hospitality is a virtue, especially during wedding week.

PHOTOGRAPHY: CHRISTA TAYLOR PHOTOGRAPHY, C/O KATIE MICHELLE DESIGNS — *PHOTOGRAPHY:* *CHRISTA TAYLOR PHOTOGRAPHY, C/O* *KATIE MICHELLE DESIGNS*

The days leading up to the wedding can make a bride’s life hectic and navigating the craziness can pose challenges. Not only are you the guest of honor, but you also play the role of hostess, extending hospitality to all of your guests, especially those coming from out of town.

Here are some ideas to help your bridesmaids, groomsmen, and out of town wedding guests feel welcomed and loved:

Accommodations

Finding accommodations may be challenging for out-of-town guests and members of the wedding party, so they would probably appreciate help finding nice (and affordable) places to stay.

Block rooms at a local hotel or, if possible, offer your spare room as an option. You could also ask around; if you have family or friends that live nearby, they may be willing to house incoming guests.

Welcome bags

Consider leaving small gift bags or baskets for your guests to receive when they arrive at their hotel.

You can fill the bag with items that may be helpful throughout the weekend such as water bottles, snacks, mints, pain relievers, and directions to the ceremony and reception. Or you might want to throw in some fancier items like a small bottle of champagne, chocolates, or local delicacies.

If you are on a strict budget, consider leaving a little welcome note or brochures about local restaurants and attractions in the rooms of your guests instead.

Provide for your Wedding Party

Chances are members of the wedding party have probably spent a fair amount of money to help make your wedding day even more special. Anticipating and filling their needs is a wonderful way to show them that you appreciate them.

Offer them a ride from the airport, and help them find a place to stay. You can host a dinner after they arrive into town or provide a nice breakfast the morning of the wedding. You can also have some snacks and drinks available wherever they are getting ready.

Having their basic needs met will help them more fully enjoy their weekend celebrating you and your soon to be spouse.

After the Ceremony

With the already packed wedding day itinerary, many couples understandably opt not to have a receiving line after the ceremony. But if your schedule allows it or if you are looking for a way to make sure you have a moment with all your guests a receiving line is a great option.

When planning the reception, keep your guests in mind. The party is for them, to celebrate you.

Make sure the food, music, and beverages can be enjoyed both by you and your new spouse, as well as the majority of your guests. That doesn’t mean you have to take every song request or have a full bar, but that you give everyone a chance to truly celebrate the great sacrament that just occurred.

Morning-after Brunch

Hosting a brunch the morning after the wedding is a special way to wrap up your wedding weekend especially if you aren’t taking a honeymoon right away.

The morning-after brunch provides a more intimate space in which you can catch up with some of your loved ones. It’s generally less hectic than the wedding reception and with the stress of the wedding day behind you, you can really enter into the joy shared by your friends and family.

About the Author: Carissa Pluta is Spoken Bride’s Editor at Large. She is the author of the blog The Myth R etold. Read more

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May 01, 2019

Mychael + Adam | Rustic Midwest Basilica Wedding

May 01, 2019/ Editor Spoken Bride

Mychael and Adam met through mutual friends while attending weekly pop culture trivia nights. From there, a mutual collective knowledge of useless information and a similar sense of humor led to a friendship.

On their first date they attended Saturday Mass together at the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis. Two years later they celebrated their relationship with a romantic dinner at 4Bells seafood house nearby. A little later, years after that “accidental” first date, Adam proposed on Christmas Eve.

From the Bride: I have a daughter from a previous relationship with profound disabilities. She is incredibly sweet and innocent--but not for the faint of heart.

I knew it was going to take an incredible man, a “St. Joseph” in my life, to open my heart to marriage and to embrace her as his own. Adam rose to the occasion, and I fell madly in love with him.

From the Groom: I met Mychael, as a friend, when I was going through a hard time finding "the one." I knew she was a smart and funny woman, but it was those weeks following our "first date" when I really had to decide whether to take a risk or remain just friends.

But once we chose to date each other, I knew I was all in. Mychael was an incredible woman, would be a loving partner and teammate, and I already knew her as an amazing mother. We have said from early on that we are on each others team and are in everything together.

As Robin Williams wisely said in Good Will Hunting, "You’re not perfect, and let me save you the suspense: this girl you’ve met, she’s not perfect either. But the question is whether or not you’re perfect for each other." Mychael and I are not perfect, but we are perfect for each other.

During wedding planning, our priority was the nuptial Mass, making it as beautiful and sacred as the sacrament itself. We spent hours going through music on YouTube and reading Scripture to hand-pick every detail. This made for some wonderful nights together.

Mychael and I were mindful of all the details, carefully choosing every aspect to reflect how we wanted to enter into marriage, and, most importantly, how we wanted to live out our marriage. We immediately began to book vendors, searching for Minnesota-created and sourced options for our big day. Every detail reflected aspects of our relationship, from the Notre Dame ticket-inspired save the date and “Marry Like a Champion” sign to clover leaves subtly placed in the greenery of our invitations, embracing the Mychael’s Irish heritage and my alma mater. In addition, the Minnesota outline appeared throughout the paper goods and reception details.

From the Bride: My vision for the dress was a blend of Kate and Pippa Middleton's wedding dresses, but I certainly didn't have a princess complex. Rather, I wanted to be an elegant bride for my bridegroom. I didn’t find any style that I really fell in love with or felt reflected my sensibility, so I opted for some alterations. The dress I chose was originally strapless with some tulle across the chest. By my wedding day, it had been altered with delicate lace, short sleeves, and an illusion neckline with a high lace collar.

My gorgeous, flowy long veil was purchased prior to the royal wedding but was nicknamed “the Meghan veil” by my bridesmaids.

My godmother, June, gave me her wedding rings to wear during the ceremony for luck. I wore Adam's maternal grandmother's pearls given to her by her father on her wedding day as a bracelet. She had previously passed in April. A navy blue rosary in my bouquet was my maternal grandmother’s, who passed away a week prior to our wedding.

The ceremony was held at the breathtakingly beautiful and historic Basilica of St. Mary’s and celebrated by the archbishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Most Rev. Bernard Hebda. It featured the basilica choir and Catholic musicians Tim and Julie Smith, whom I sang with growing up.

We chose a blend of contemporary and traditional music; the Irish Catholic prelude "Be Thou My Vision" and "How Can I keep from Singing.” Our entrance song was "Lord of All Hopefulness" and our final blessing and recessional hymns were "May the Road Rise Up to Meet You" and "Love Divine, All Love Excelling."

It was important to us that prayer in musical form be central to the Mass because sacred music is a large part of our lives. The archbishop was even kind enough to compliment us on how beautiful the music was, and that he expected nothing less!

For the reception, we chose 4 Bells’ rooftop for its unique and stylish characteristics in the space, but also for their craft cocktails and exquisite cuisine. It was an exceptionally intimate planned day for us and our family and friends.

Through it all, Adam and I were both involved in the planning, which made the process far less stressful, incredibly more personal, and the big day all the more celebratory.

The Thursday leading up to our wedding was the Feast of All Saints. We attended Mass together, just the two of us, and were able to celebrate a feast day we both love.

On our wedding day, witnessed by our family and friends, we chose to enter into the sacrament of marriage together. There was no father “giving the bride away.” Rather, we chose to have the two of us enter into the church at the same time, as recommended by the revised Rite of Marriage. It was a sacrament between the two of us and God, and we received so many compliments on this choice!

As we stood behind the grand basilica doors, Adam said he was so grateful that we had come to this moment. We both recognize how wonderful it is that we are able to walk this marriage journey together, because there is no one else I want to be doing this with.

Adam is a wonderful man of faith. He is kind and thoughtful in practical and romantic ways. He is a loving partner and embodies St. Joseph. He challenges me and supports me unconditionally.

We are both mindful that we have not come to this place alone. We have held onto our Catholic faith and our faith in each other to choose marriage. Perhaps it is our Midwest sensibility or Catholics in general, but discussing our faith outwardly does not come naturally to us. And so, our nuptial Mass and wedding was a wonderful and beautiful way for us to show our love for God and our faith to friends and family.

Over the years together we have celebrated and mourned. We have attended friends’ weddings and many funerals. We have laughed and cried. But through it all we remember the lyrics of the song we chose for our first dance, "God Gave Me You:" “God gave me you for the ups and downs, God gave me you for the days of doubt.”

The wedding was one wonderful day. Our marriage will be a lifetime, and we are excited for the journey.

Photography: Rachel Kathleen Photography | Church: Basilica of St. Mary - Minneapolis Minnesota | Reception: 4Bells - Minneapolis Minnesota | Dress: Rebecca Ingram design, heavily altered by Custom Sewing by Heather (the dress was strapless with tulle when purchased from Bella Bridal in Woodbury, MN | Grooms’ Attire: Calvin Klein, Macy’s | Rings: Bride Continental diamond, Groom Blue Nile
Bridesmaids: Adrianna Papell & Badgley mischka | Hair: Be Lovely by Amber Ann | Makeup: Beauty by Cort Anne
Flowers: KMB floral | Invitations & Save the Dates & Guest sign wooden board: A Milestone Paper Co. | Details including Notre Dame inspired “Marry Like A Champion” sign created by the Bride

April 24, 2019

Julie + Tim | Beach-Inspired Wedding

April 24, 2019/ Editor Spoken Bride

Tim and Julie’s love story is one built on patience, truth, love, and a little Mario Kart.

When they first met, Tim was a fallen-away Catholic who loved to ask questions. Julie was a practicing Catholic who quickly came to love Tim’s fun personality and deep conversation, but was hesitant to take the next step.

They knew the difference in their beliefs would keep them from being “equally yoked” in a possible marriage, but God, in his infinite knowledge, still had a plan.

From the Bride: Tim and I met through Nick, a mutual friend, on February 5, 2016. I was tired that day and almost didn’t go out. But we all met at a local restaurant and spent a good portion of that night talking. Tim asked for my number and if he could call me the next day to hear my testimony. I did not think much about him other than as a nice new friend—after all, he was a fallen-away Catholic, now Protestant, and I was devoutly Catholic.

However, he called me the next day, and we talked for about two hours. A week later, he invited me out to Dunkin Donuts. We met that evening and enjoyed a great conversation about God, our faith, and our interests. Conversation flowed naturally, and he admitted that he would love to date me but did not believe in being unequally yoked, so we left things as friends.

Tim and I became best friends in no time. Sometimes we got together with Nick, and sometimes it was just the two of us playing Mario Kart or coloring and just enjoying each other’s company. I began to feel a tug at my heart that despite Tim’s Protestant faith, I loved his heart for God and his personality. He was very devout in his faith, and I knew he’d make a great Catholic!

In June 2016, I discovered Our Lady of Siluva was a great saint for the reversion of sinners, so I began praying to her and including his reversion in my rosary intentions. Months went by, and I continued praying daily for Tim as we continued our friendship. Over time, he began showing more of a genuine interest in Catholicism and asked me questions about misconceptions that initially had pulled him away. I shared some apologetics books and articles with him, and on January 13, 2017, we started dating.

It was at this time he told me he would like to go to Mass. I continued to pray my rosary and reached out to my priest to pray for Tim at Mass as well. The first few Masses he attended were difficult for him, but he kept feeling pulled back. Months went by and misconception after misconception soon became answered. Tim began to fall more and more in love with the Mass, and around May of that year, he made the decision to attend RCIA.

In June 2017, Tim declared that he felt called to start praying the rosary with me, a year after I began asking for Our Lady of Siluva’s intercession. He continued to dive into learning more about the Church, and he began to fall more in love with the truth of Catholicism every day. By the time he began RCIA, the catechists said that Tim knew so much, he should be on the other side, teaching it!

On September 23, 2017, a few days after my birthday, Tim and I decided to go down to one of our favorite places: Wildwood, New Jersey. Later that evening, Tim had me get in his car and made me close my eyes until we arrived at what I later discovered was Sunset Beach in Cape May. He took my hand and led me to an open patch where two chairs were facing each other.

The sun was setting over the ocean behind us. I sat down and discovered he had brought his guitar, and what followed was a beautiful heartfelt speech of his love for me, combined with all our favorite Christian songs and love songs that reminded us of each other. I was a puddle of tears by the end of the speech, and he got down on one knee, saying jokingly, “Wait, I forgot something!”

He ran off, and came back with my little shih tzu, Ginger, wearing a sign around her neck that said, “Julie, will you marry me?” He got down on one knee again and asked me the question that made me the most joyful girl in the world! We finished the night with an engagement shoot from our talented photographer and (later) DJ of our wedding, Daniel Jeffrey (of Daniel Jeffrey Studios), who had also had taken pictures of the entire proposal in hiding.

Tim and I wanted our faith to be the centerpiece of our wedding day, so the night before our nuptials, we went to adoration together. There were going to be many cultural Catholics and Protestants at our wedding, but we could not imagine our ceremony without a beautiful nuptial Mass focusing on Christ.

Ever since we began praying the rosary together in June 2017, we hadn’t missed a day, so it was very important for us to begin the morning of our wedding day by praying the rosary on the phone together.

Fittingly enough, it was difficult to find a wedding date that worked for our priest, church, and reception, and the one date that was available ended up being June 9, 2018, the Memorial of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Our Lady had heard my intentions back in June 2016, continued to hear our intentions when we began praying together in June 2017, and now she was going to be a part of our wedding day in a way we never could have expected.

Early that morning, we called each other on the phone and prayed our rosary. We also read letters that we had written to each other. Tim’s letter was absolutely one of the sweetest things I have ever read, and I was grateful I read it before having my makeup done. We hung up and prepared for the next time we would see each other--to become husband and wife.

I could hardly wait to get into my dress and veil, because they were everything I dreamed of. I had always wanted a ballgown, something with a slight poof that would remind me of my days as a little girl, twirling around in princess dresses. Modesty was also incredibly important to me, but I never imagined I would find long sleeves and a modest neckline like I did.

The dress was on clearance from David’s Bridal, and it was simply meant to be. They only had two sizes left, one of them being my size. There was so much gorgeous detail: beading and lace from top to bottom. My mom graciously sewed some additional lace to the back of my dress, as there was a small section that seemed abnormally “bare” compared to the rest of the dress’s modest covering and lace detail.

I slipped into my lace flats, which were the perfect combination of simplicity and daintiness to match my style. Finally, I put on my veil. I loved how traditional it looked; it reminded me of the veil my mom wore on her wedding day. There was just enough detail on the edges, and it was the perfect length for me. Altogether, I truly felt like a princess.

I chose mixtures of roses and lilies for our flowers. Roses in honor of Mother Mary, and the lilies in honor of my mommom who had passed away thirteen years ago. I was very close to her, and the lilies (in addition to me wearing her watch) were little reminders that she was with me on my special day. I also chose mixtures of creamy whites because white symbolizes purity.

My bridesmaids’ bouquets were just as beautiful: baby’s breath surrounded soft purple and pink roses. They went perfectly with their royal blue dresses. It had been so difficult for me to choose the dresses for my girls. I knew I wanted them all to be the same, but I kept going back and forth on the color. Finally, I came across a royal blue color swatch, and it was so richly blue, it reminded me once again of Mother Mary’s hand in our day. I settled on beautiful, modest dresses from JJ’s House with short sleeves and lace on the top half with a flowy bottom.

We lovingly planned our Mass so it was nothing short of a foretaste of Heaven.

Tim processed down the aisle, followed by our priest and deacon who had been a part of his reversion to the Church. The air was filled with all our favorite hymns including the “Servant Song”, “How Beautiful”, and “I Am the Bread of Life.” I walked down the aisle to “Canon in D”, the melody I had dreamed of walking down the aisle to since I was a little girl.

We had been nervous for our nuptial Mass because of how few guests were practicing Catholics, but the love of God was tangible the entire time. Our priest kindly reminded those who were not Catholic or not practicing to refrain from the Body and Blood of Christ, which helped save us a lot of stress.

It was wonderful having our priest who had been with us from the very beginning of our relationship preside over our wedding Mass, and it was equally as wonderful to have our deacon who was a part of Tim’s RCIA process assist. Our ceremony was not at our parish, but at the church where Tim had been baptized and received Communion before he had fallen away. We did this to bring our spiritual lives together—Tim’s former church and our current priest and deacon—and it was beautiful seeing how this parish had come full circle for Tim.

Nick, who helped Tim and I meet, was our lector, and our two dear friends from RCIA presented the gifts. We chose the “Wedding at Cana” for our Gospel reading because, of course, we had to continue to tie our Blessed Mother into our day! And our priest gave such a wonderful homily on unity and following Christ that I think it was refreshing for all our Protestant friends, many of whom had never been to a Catholic Mass, to hear such a gospel-centered message. We concluded the liturgy by giving flowers to Our Blessed Mother while praying and singing “Ave Maria”. It was a beautiful end to a beautiful Mass.

Our reception was filled with food and dancing. Tim and I created little “Madlibs” from Vistaprint for our guests to give us some “wedding advice,” and we added some of our favorite saint quotes on love and marriage. Our cake was beach-themed, since we both love the beach and that was where Tim proposed. We had graham cracker crumbs and brown sugar for sand, two little beach chairs that read “Mr. and Mrs.,” and a topper that said “God Gave Me You”. Our first dance was “Perfect” by Ed Sheeran, another song that reminded us of our relationship.

Our wedding day flew by, like they all do, but I carry the joy with me every single day when I reflect on it.

Like many girls, I had dreamed of this day my entire life. But there were so many things that occupied my mind that felt overwhelming. Our priest once told us that nothing is perfect this side of Heaven. Things can go wrong, people get sick and can't show up, inclement weather happens, or construction can occur on the outside of your church (like in our case!).

However, after stressing over all the details for months on end, I realized how small all these worries really were. The only thing that really matters is the marriage sacrament between you, your husband, and God. The prayers you pray each morning, the sacrifices both of you will make, and the trials both of you will face are so much more important than the flowers, the cake, or any of the other little things that occupy the wedding day.

Reflecting back on our day, we realized that everything we worried about went to the wayside, and the peace of God was with us from start to finish. Everything simply fell into place, and God's hand was in every single aspect.

For us, taking the time to go to adoration the night before and praying novenas, a daily rosary, and other devotionals in preparation for our marriage were astronomically important to developing a sound relationship grounded in Christ. So many people stress about the wedding day but neglect the ever-growing commitment it takes to have a strong, healthy, and holy marriage.

And so, Tim and I can't stress enough the importance of constantly relying on God's graces and keeping Jesus the center of your wedding day, your engagement, and the rest of your marriage. If we could do it all again, we would definitely stress way less about the minor wedding details and fully surrender our trust to God. We would trust that He would make our day grace-filled and beautiful, no matter what happened. And yet, we could not feel more blessed about our day and how grateful we are to live out our sacrament of marriage together.

April 17, 2019

Sabrina + Nick | Handcrafted Jersey Shore Wedding

April 17, 2019/ Editor Spoken Bride

Sabrina and Nick have always been “adventure buddies.”

During one of their many adventures, volunteering to rebuild historic cottages in the Grand Tetons, Nick asked the love of his life to accompany him on their greatest adventure yet: marriage and family.

Their love story encompasses conversion, Padre Pio, the Jersey Shore, and beehives--all part of their extraordinary, summertime wedding bathed in sunflowers and God’s grace. And it all began in a college architecture class.

From the Bride: Our Catholic relationship was not a typical one. I am a cradle Catholic who started to grow deeper in my faith only after college. Nick's mother is Lutheran, and his dad is Catholic. He was raised primarily in his father’s faith, but he did not receive any of his sacraments beyond baptism before dating me.

Nick and I met during our first year of college at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in 2010. He had transferred from Hartford, and I had just graduated from high school. Looking back, I almost attended a different college.

God’s plan is perfect, though, and we both chose to attend NJIT in 2010. We were placed in the same studio room for our architecture class and quickly became good friends, especially since we were both commuters. Nick would wait for my dad to pick me up on his way home from work. He would even miss his train ride home to wait with me.

We supported each other through late nights in studio, and he always kept me laughing. We became good friends but didn’t start dating until our fourth year of college because I had been in a previous relationship until then. Nick was quick to seize the opportunity.

Three and a half years later in August 2017, Nick and I found ourselves in the Grand Tetons National Park. For the past three years, we had volunteered a week of our time annually with the National Park Service in the Grand Tetons to stabilize historic log cabins in the park. Nick proposed in the barn we were working on for the week in front of all the volunteers. It was like a dream.

We decided to get married a year later on the anniversary of our engagement. As we prepped for the wedding, Nick went through RCIA with me as his sponsor. He would come to my bible study group, and our faith grew deeper. We attended holy hours together, and I knew I was growing in my faith along with him.

We planned to get married at the church by his family’s shore house that we attended all the years we dated: St. Pio’s. After our engagement, my friend Gabriella found a St. Pio rosary and gave it to me. I prayed on it every week at adoration leading up to the wedding. I even wrapped it around the stem on my bouquet with a miraculous medal.

Nick and I developed a strong devotion to Padre Pio. We prayed his novena and asked him to adopt us as his spiritual children and be the patron saint of our marriage. We also prayed St. Josemaria Escriva’s novena in the days leading up to the wedding, which we loved.

Throughout it all, I petitioned God for Nick’s full and deep conversion to the Catholic Church. And although we both have more room to grow, I’m so proud of how far we have come, especially Nick.

The night before the wedding we went to confession with the priest who would be celebrating our nuptial Mass. We wanted to receive the marital sacrament with pure hearts, and I’m so happy Nick and I made sure we did that. Before going to sleep we called each other and said the last day of the St. Josemaria novena. It was such a beautiful way to countdown to the wedding.

The weather on the big day was hot but not too humid, and I felt like God was smiling on us the whole time. My friend Gabriella said a quick prayer as we walked into the church, but I told her it had to be a quick one because I would be too emotional. I’m such a happy crier!

I kept asking God and Padre Pio to be with me because I was so nervous to walk down the aisle. When they opened the doors, I tripped a little on my dress. This helped me focus on not falling, but I also think it was God’s way of giving me something to think about instead of becoming a crying mess. When I looked up at the end of the aisle, Nick was crying hard. He was so happy, and I felt such peace knowing I was marrying him.

As the ceremony went on, I strongly felt Padre Pio was with us as well as our guardian angels. Nick and I had picked all of the music and readings for the Mass, so it was very meaningful to both of us. When we presented flowers to the Blessed Mother, we prayed a couple of Hail Mary’s and then a prayer we had written together. It was such an intimate and special moment.

Our wedding programs included all the parts in the Mass and a beautiful quote by St. Thomas Aquinas: “The Eucharist is the sacrament of love; it signifies love, it produces love. The Eucharist is the consummation of the whole spiritual life.”

With that in mind, we received the Body and Blood of Christ together for the first time as a married couple. All I could do was look at Nick and thank God for giving me the man of my dreams and allowing me to lead him closer to Christ.

We had worked so hard on planning the wedding, but the work we put into our faith life was worth more than anything else that day.

After the ceremony we left on a trolley to Smithville to party! The theme of the wedding was “adventure” because Nick and I always say that we are adventure buddies. And we handmade everything for the wedding. We are both architects, so we knew we could do it.

Our invitations, made by hand, included a map of the Jersey Shore with all the significant places to the wedding and to us. Our favors were honey jars made from our own honey that we harvested the weekend before the wedding from our beehive. The table that displayed the honey also displayed birdhouses that Nick had made for me when we were dating.

I wrote all the table assignments on panes of glass from old windows, and the tables were named after different national parks. Nick and his dad built wooden crates for the centerpieces, and we filled them with flowers and fresh peaches. We told everyone to take home a peach with their honey.

Our sweetheart table had handcrafted signs that I painted as well as more crates. Nick’s mom and I made a quilt together that had Disney’s Up house on it. That became our “guest quilt,” where everyone signed in on a balloon. And finally, we painted a mailbox like the one from Up where guests placed their cards.

My favorite flowers are sunflowers and succulents, so there were plenty throughout the whole wedding. We took photos all over Smithville, a cute, historic town with many photo opportunities. And our wedding band kept everyone dancing all night.

In short, our wedding day was amazing, and I thank God everyday for it. I couldn’t wait to live life with Nick and build on the foundation we built on Christ.

For our honeymoon a month later, we travelled to Rome and Switzerland after my friend Gabriella’s wedding with her and her new husband. In Rome, we attended the Sposi Novelli blessing at the Pope’s general audience. Again, I was praying to Padre Pio that we would get to meet the Pope, but there were so many couples there that it seemed unlikely.

They started gathering all of the couples, and we found ourselves in the wrong spot. It seemed like we wouldn’t get to meet him. I told Gabriella and our husbands that we should stand on a shorter rail that I spotted. I thought even if we wouldn’t meet him, we could at least get a better view.

That short rail ended up being the gate to let all the couples into the main area for everyone to gather. So we were the first ones through! When we got our spot, I realized I had lost my Padre Pio rosary. Gabriella told me not to worry, that Padre Pio was with us anyway. But when we looked down, I saw the rosary had somehow landed in the spot we were going to stand in!

When we met the Pope, we told him we were praying for him and that he needed to rebuild the church. Gabriella and I got pretty emotional about this, so he spent a long time with us saying that he would, and that we needed to keep praying too.

It was one of the most special experiences of our lives to receive the Pope’s blessing. Nick and I have had the most incredible year, and it is all because of God and his perfect plan.

Without a Christ-centered relationship, our entire wedding day and our marriage would've been completely different. It would never have been as fulfilling. You could feel our love for each other and for God that day. Everyone said that is what made the wedding so special.

Photography: Maryanne Photography, Kevin and Aly Photography, Meyer Photo and Video Group | Mass: St. Pio of Pietrelcina, Lavellette, NJ | Reception: The Smithville Inn, Absecon, NJ | Engagement Ring: designed by the groom, via Salt and Stone

April 10, 2019

Natasha + Tim | New Year's Winter Watercolor Wedding

April 10, 2019/ Editor Spoken Bride

We are honored by the opportunity to walk alongside you in this marriage ministry, from Yes to I Do and beyond, and we love returning to our couples' stories as they continue to unfold. If we've featured your love story in our How He Asked engagement series and you now feel called to share your wedding with us, as well, submission details can be found here.

Read more here for the story of Natasha and Tim’s engagement story, previously featured on the blog.

Community is an essential part of the celebration of marriage. Although it is a sacrament conferred between two people, marriage is always meant to point outward, to be open to life and service in a myriad of ways, and to become the foundational unit of the larger community.

Natasha and Tim celebrated this communal aspect of marriage by intentionally inviting their friends and family into the preparation. Whether it was wearing her aunt’s fifty year old wedding dress or teaching her family the art of watercolor for the invitations, Natasha and Tim’s love ignited the joy of their community.

May all engaged and married people embrace this beautiful sacrament that calls the bride and groom to always serve the other as well as their community of love around them.

From the Bride: Tim and I met junior year at the University of Minnesota, through the Catholic community of Saint Paul’s Outreach. Our time spent as friends during undergrad was filled with a lot of discernment and growth in our personal relationships with Christ.

Looking back, it is exciting to see how God was preparing our hearts as singles in ways that were going to allow us to be more "free" in a romantic relationship.

A strong theme throughout our relationship has always been community. We have been blessed with a community of faithful friends and family that Christ used to guide us through this initial period of discernment.

We officially started dating two and a half years after we met, right before I left for grad school, so the majority of our romantic relationship was long distance. Even though the distance was difficult, it forced us to be intentional with our relationship, and the time spent as friends gave us the confidence to pursue marriage. We had to become quite creative with ways to invite Christ into our relationship such as praying together over the phone nightly.

A little over a year into dating, Tim asked me to marry him over-looking the central square of our alma mater on New Year’s Eve.

We must have a thing for romantic events in the freezing cold, because almost exactly a year later on December 30, 2017, we said our vows.

The high temperature on our wedding day was an aggressive 14 degrees below zero. Such is the gamble with a New Year’s wedding in Minnesota! But despite the cold, we had an amazing, Christ-centered day with those we love--and everyone’s cars started the next day.

We were fortunate enough to do a majority of our marriage preparation with Father Mike Schmitz, and one of the ideas he brought up early on was how marriage and holy orders are the two sacraments that are intended to be sacraments for “others."

He challenged us to take this to prayer, and it sparked a larger conversation between us about what it meant for our marriage to be something that was to be shared with others, to help reveal something about Christ to the world.

We felt Christ was placing on our hearts the importance of community and marriage as a unique mission field for evangelization. As a result of this conviction, we spent a lot of time discerning unique ways in which we could invite our guests into the celebration in an intentional way.

To start, we saw the personal touches the Church allows couples to incorporate into the wedding liturgy as an opportunity for our guests who were either not Catholic or fallen-away from the Church to be welcomed and invited to witness the beauty of our faith. As Saint Pope John Paul II says, the liturgy would be our “profession of faith.” Father Mike was able to provide us with a really great template for our wedding programs to help explain the Mass to our guests and encourage participation.

Tim’s parents are both music teachers, so it was an easy choice to have his family create a choir that did a phenomenal job setting the tone for the liturgy and leading the congregation in participation with hymns. As it was the octave of Christmas, the bridal party and myself processed in to “O Come All Ye Faithful” and we recessed to “Joy to the World.” It was such a joy to see guests with their hymnals open, belting out a favorite Christmas hymn. I felt like they were singing my dad and I down the aisle!

Continuing in the theme of community, we wanted our guests to feel welcome and enjoy the reception. For us, this meant hiring a great DJ who shared our faith and vision of the day, but who could also MC well, inviting our guests into the celebration.

We chose a round head table for us and our wedding party that sat in the center of the room among our guests. It was one of my favorite elements because we felt surrounded by those we loved rather than set apart from them. One of our favorite memories of the reception was dancing the night away with our guests, many of whom stayed until the final song!

I was able to design our invitations, programs, table numbers, and place settings. I even got to teach the ladies of my family about watercolors as they helped me finish all the invites. My mom and mother-in-law are crafty too, so I set them to work on the flowers, and together we created all the bouquets and the gorgeous fern chandelier that hung above our round head table.

My mom baked the wedding cake, and a family friend made over three hundred cupcakes in our favorite flavors for the guests. Meanwhile, my aunt sewed all the bridesmaids’ custom robes for a comfy gift the morning of the wedding, and my sister did my hair and make-up. It was such a joy to stay in my pajamas for as long as possible on such a cold morning!

My wedding dress was my aunt's, who celebrated her 50th wedding anniversary with my uncle this year. She was so honored to have me wear it, and it was truly my dream dress. My mom, who is a handy seamstress, helped to make it my own with a modern take on the back.

Some advice I would give to other Catholic brides is to use your resources well. Don’t sweat the small stuff, and don’t believe the lie that you have to spend a ton of money to have a beautiful wedding. Find centerpiece items at thrift shops or trade expensive favors for a creative, late-evening snack bar (we brought out popcorn halfway through the evening as an inexpensive dancing snack that the guests loved).

Use the gifts and talents of your friends and family--they are itching to help, and you will make some beautiful memories. It is also a great way to foster community and share your faith by showing others the beauty and depth of the marriage sacrament.

Above all, have confidence that if you and your fiancé are focused on the right stuff (Jesus Christ), your friends and family who understand the true purpose of your day will create an environment where you feel loved and everyone is having a good time.

St. John Paul II discusses the importance of community and the mission of marriage in his exhortation to the family when he says,

“The celebration of the sacrament of marriage is the basic moment of the faith of the couple. This sacrament, in essence, is the proclamation in the Church of the Good News concerning married love. It is the word of God that "reveals" and "fulfills" the wise and loving plan of God for the married couple, giving them a mysterious and real share in the very love with which God himself loves humanity. Since the sacramental celebration of marriage is itself a proclamation of the word of God, it must also be a "profession of faith" within and with the Church, as a community of believers, on the part of all those who in different ways participate in its celebration.”

One of my favorite memories of the wedding ceremony was singing "Tantum Ergo" shortly after communion as Tim and I knelt in front of the cross. The entire church, filled with people of all faiths and from all elements of our lives, was oriented toward the cross with us as we prayed together, and Tim and I's love for one another had brought them there! It felt like a precursor of what Heaven may be like, standing at the foot of Jesus, praising him.

I glanced over sideways at Tim and had to fight back tears at the realization that this man wasn't just willing to bring me to the cross, but kneel with me humbly before Jesus. It was in that moment that no amount of stress or seating charts or color swatches could have ever mattered.

Tim and I were saying “yes” to a lifelong mission of walking toward the cross together and reminding each other of our true identity as a son and daughter of God when we forget. We are building a foundation in which we can bring Christ to any person we encounter along our journey.

I cannot wait to see what God does with our “yes.”

Photography: Sarah Ascanio Photography | Mass: The Church of Saint Mark, Saint Paul, Minnesota | Reception: The Pavillion at Lake Elmo, Lake Elmo, Minnesota | Bride's Engagement Ring: Shane Co. | Wedding Rings: Etsy | Bride and Bridesmaids bouquets: Bloominous | Table Flowers, Boutonnieres: Bought in bulk from Hy-vee Floral | Invitations/Stationary/Programs: Handmade by the Bride | Bride's Dress and veil: Family Heirlooms, Aunt's dress/Sister's veil | Bride's Earrings: Edina Jewelry Store | Groom and Groomsmen attire: The Black Tux, The Steinbeck Outfit | Bridesmaids' Attire: Revelry Dresses in Better Together Blue and Lavender Colors | Bridesmaids' Jewelry: Target | Cake: Homemade by Mother of the Bride | Cupcakes: Homemade by Family Friend | DJ Services: DJ Bill Lage | Rehearsal Dinner Food: DarBar Indian Restaurant | Rehearsal Dinner Location and Beverage: Bad Weather Brewery

March 27, 2019

Beth + Nick | Ethical Fair Trade Wedding

March 27, 2019/ Editor Spoken Bride

The date is set, church arrangements have been made, and you are about begin deciding the particulars of your wedding with your fiancé. While taking steps to make it a truly Catholic ceremony, consider using the occasion not only to serve your guests, but a larger community of people in need.

Beth and Nick’s inspirational nuptials proves that a Catholic wedding can be beautiful, ethical, and respect the dignity of the human person through every step of the planning process.

Discover how they combined both the sacramental beauty of their wedding day with their passion for Catholic social teaching.

From the Photographer (An Endless Pursuit): “We knew when we got engaged that we wanted to live out our faith in a really special way. Not only did we want a Catholic ceremony, but we wanted to choose vendors and services that were ethical and/or local, when possible,” said the bride.

It is no surprise that Beth and Nick would plan their wedding to reflect their passion for Catholic social teaching. Serving the community and supporting those in need has always been a priority for this couple. Committed to living the faith through helping the poor and disadvantaged, both bride and groom held roles in homeless and prison ministries even before they met and were engaged.

Beth is co-founder and current co-director of the The StarFish Foundation, which provides education and support services for at-risk youth in Guayaquil, Ecuador.

“We realized that we would feel a little better about spending so much money on various wedding costs if we could feel confident that the people who made our items and delivered our services were paid and treated fairly,” she explained.

After quite a bit of research, the couple was able to find companies and vendors that fed their zeal for social justice with missions that stressed the dignity of the human person. The bridesmaids’ dresses and the mother of the bride’s dress were all made by Mata Traders, a company that partners with fair trade organizations in India and Nepal.

“The Mata Traders team worked with everyone’s sizes and my color preferences to recommend different options for dresses, helping me to determine quantities, availability and more,” Beth said. As for her own dress, the bride chose to work with bridal dress shop Celia Grace and was able to know exactly who made her dress: a father of four living in India. The Celia Grace team also helped Nick to find ties for himself, his groomsmen, and the father of the bride through their network of ethical fair trade vendors.

Beth and her bridesmaids were covered in fair trade goodness from head to toe. The bride, mother of the bride, and bridesmaids all sported Rothy’s: comfortable, classy shoes made from recycled water bottles. “If you’re not familiar with Rothy’s, you should be! I literally wear mine everyday—to work, on hikes, out with friends—everywhere” Beth gushed.

The couple chose their rings from Brilliant Earth and Aide-mémoire Jewelry. “When it comes to jewelry, taking an ethical path was so important. Many diamonds are made in conflict zones in Africa,” said Beth. “Having worked on many social justice issues over the years as a way to live my Catholic faith, I knew that [a traditional diamond] wasn’t an option.”

Beth also gifted her bridesmaids with jewelry steeped in meaning from The Starfish Project. The jewelry designer is changing lives of exploited women by educating and training them in sustainable, positive careers. Likewise, before the ceremony, Nick gifted Beth with a beautiful bracelet from Purpose Jewelry, an organization that gives hope to women who have been subjected to human trafficking.

Beth and Nick also made sure to shop local for many of their vendors as a way to support the Baltimore community they love. Their cupcakes were made by Flavor Cupcakery, which Beth encountered in one her many service roles.

“Years ago, when I worked at a homeless shelter in Baltimore, the owner reached out and offered to bring enough cupcakes for all 500 residents the day before Christmas Eve. It was such a special experience. We knew we wanted to support this local business on our wedding day.”

Local Color Flowers is a florist in Baltimore that sources local and seasonal flowers and gives their clients a unique experience. They guarantee the color and style of your flowers, but the exact type will be a surprise on your wedding day. “The team guided us in the process, learning all about our wedding so they could select flowers that really fit our personality and the vision of the wedding,” Beth said. “They did a fantastic job, and the surprise element was really fun for us.” As a bonus, the centerpieces provided were herbs that guests could take home and cultivate.

Beth and Nick’s wedding is a witness of how the love between two people can expand to love of their fellow man. Using your wedding budget to support ethical treatment of workers and honest business practices is something to consider. It elevates the worth of those who are working to ensure your wedding day is nothing less than incredible.

“Overall, we wanted to ensure our guests had a great time, but we hope they also shared in the joy of supporting ethical, local, and fair trade organizations,” said the bride.

Beth and Nick’s passion for upholding the dignity of the human person has made me wonder if ethical and fair trade weddings should be more of a trend in the world of Catholic nuptials.

They hope to inspire brides to consider where they source their decorations and vendors, because even a wedding budget can affect change in the lives of so many people.

Photography: An Endless Pursuit | Videography: Laurentina Photo & Video | Church: Catholic Community of South Baltimore | Wedding Reception Venue : Rusty Scupper | Day of Coordination: Kaitlyn Harrison, coordinationco.com | | DJ: Kevin Remaley, Rockin' Remaley, rockinremaley.com | Hair & Makeup: Down the Aisle in Style, baltimoreweddinghair.com | Flowers: Local Color Flowers, locoflo.com | Cupcakes: Flavor Cupcakery, flavorcupcakery.com | Bride's Dress: Celia Grace, celia-grace.com
Bridesmaid's Dresses: Mata Traders, matatraders.com | Bridemaid's Jewelry: The Starfish Project, thestarfishproject.com
Bride's Gift from Groom: Purpose Jewelry, purposejewelry.org | Bridal Party Shoes: Rothy's, rothys.com | Rings: Brilliant Earth, brilliantearth.com, Aide-memoire Jewelry, aidememoirejewelry.com

March 20, 2019

Emily + Nathan | Rainy Day Marian Wedding

March 20, 2019/ Editor Spoken Bride

“In the end, beauty triumphed.”

Emily’s words echo back from her wedding day throughout her courtship, dating relationship, and friendship with Nathan.

From the very beginning, Emily and Nathan kept Beauty himself at the center of their relationship. Their trust in God and peaceful, intentional discernment eventually led to a garden proposal--which included a beautiful rosary as an engagement gift and a ring pop.

But perhaps the most inspiring part of Emily and Nathan’s story is their confident, consistent awareness of the Lord’s presence in even the smallest details of their wedding day. And not just his presence, but also the joyful presence of his loving mother, the Blessed Virgin.

From the Groom: Emily and I met through church in college and became part of the same group of friends, but we didn’t get to know each other very well at first. Not until we landed full-time jobs in the same city after graduating in 2016. Both of us were coming out of some broken relationships and were looking to “find ourselves” out in the real world.

From the Bride: Shortly after graduation, I started attending a young adult small group through my parish and invited Nathan to join as well. Seeing each other at these weekly meetings helped us learn more about each other and become closer friends.

Nathan: That fall, we went with a group of friends to a Catholic dating seminar. The speaker, John Antonio, was a former seminarian who presented a more intentional approach to relationships. It was similar to the progressive stages of increasing commitment he made while in seminary. Dating Emily wasn’t on my radar at the time, but we received the same mental framework for dating that would help guide us later on.

Emily: My relationship tumult continued, and I was confused by my strong interest in several guys, including Nathan. I wanted my next relationship to be different. It needed to be different. So I prayed more fervently and made a stronger, more conscious effort to entrust my relationship decisions to God.

Soon afterwards, I prayed the 30 day novena to St. Joseph with the intention that I would meet my future husband sometime during the year. We didn’t have to get married that year, but I wanted to know who. The whole idea was a longshot, but this was a good opportunity to practice trusting in God more fully. And St. Joseph is not known for letting people down!

Nathan: I had my first inkling that I might end up with Emily in September 2016, but life circumstances at the time prevented our relationship from blossoming. In January 2017, I signed up for a Catholic young adult volleyball league and sent a message out to recruit teammates. It sounded fun, but in the back of my head I knew that my parents met in a young adult volleyball league, and I was hoping I’d find somebody there too.

Emily was the only one to accept my invitation. Over the next couple months, I became more certain that I should take a chance with her.

Emily: About a week after I completed my novena, Nathan approached me and said he’d like to talk to me about “some stuff” soon and then walked away. I freaked out a little. So after our small group meeting the next day, I pulled him aside to ask what “stuff” was.

Turns out we had been thinking about each other quite a lot. Wanting to set a more intentional course, we agreed on a “mutual discernment period” that ran through the end of the volleyball season to see if our friendship would blossom into something more.

Nathan: Things progressed nicely over those two and a half months, so while on a date in June 2017—after a strange sequence of events that led to hiking along a mosquito-infested pond behind a grocery store—we decided to make it official. As boyfriend and girlfriend, we wanted to “step it up” and set a more lasting spiritual foundation for our relationship.

Emily and I started some spiritual traditions together: Mass, weekly adoration, and nightly prayer. We grew to love God and each other more in the process, and it didn’t take us long to realize we wanted this relationship to continue for the rest of our lives.

Emily: On October 7, 2017, I met Nathan early in the morning in our church’s rosary garden. I had a feeling that day would be “the day,” but I tried to quiet my heart and focus on praying with him. After finishing our rosary, we stopped in front of the statue of Our Lady, and Nathan proposed.

But he didn’t ask me with a ring. He didn’t ask with anything but himself, and I said yes! Afterwards, he gave me a beautiful rosary as an engagement gift…and a ring pop.

We wanted the wedding to reflect our vision for marriage: Christ-centered, and therefore, full of beauty. However, we knew this beauty wasn’t just for us, but for everyone witnessing it as well, so we would all be drawn closer to Beauty himself. We also knew we couldn’t do it alone, so we asked the Holy Spirit to guide us every step of the way.

To honor the Blessed Virgin Mary, we chose to have our wedding on September 8, the feast of her nativity. I half-joked with a friend that our wedding cake was actually Mary’s birthday cake. It wasn’t until after the wedding that we noticed how much she made herself quietly, humbly present in every detail of the day.

So many little things pointed to her. Even the decorations behind the head table at the reception seemed to form the Auspice Maria symbol, which we recently discovered is Latin for “under the protection of Mary.” Really, we didn’t plan this! And yet, she made it so clear she wanted to be part of our celebration.

I am also a believer that God works through Pinterest. We found some gorgeous color palettes that included light blues, greens, and a dash of red. After reflecting on our choice, I realized that light blue could point to Mary, the red to the Precious Blood and sacrifice, and the greens to new life.

Our flowers--lilies, roses, and light blue hydrangeas amidst eucalyptus and baby’s breath--also held a special significance for us. Lilies are my favorite flower, mainly due to their association with Mary and St. Joseph, and roses are significant for both Nathan and me. My patron saint is St. Therese the Little Flower, and roses became special for Nathan after he gave a talk on a retreat that used a rose to symbolize the sacrificial nature of love.

Much of our wedding also reflected our desire to be creative and share that creativity. From our homemade save-the-dates and invitations to the crayons we placed at every reception table (so everyone could doodle, of course), we shared our love of creativity with our guests. After all, it is one of the most profound ways we reflect God, the Creator himself.

My ring was also born of this God-given creativity.

One reason Nathan didn’t propose with a ring was because he wanted me to choose one, and I elected to do a custom design. After many ideas and unsatisfying sketches, I decided to simply ask the Holy Spirit to guide my hand.

The end result was astounding. My design incorporated all the elements I wanted: lilies, thorns, and sapphires, but the significance and symbolism of their arrangement didn’t sink in until I looked closer at the sketch.

Around the central diamond is a “crown” of thorns, which radiates outward and touches the blue sapphires. Beyond the sapphires lie the lilies, from which leafy vines emanate. This is what I interpreted these elements to mean: Christ, the light of the world, suffered and died for our sins. Through Mary’s fiat, allowing Christ to come through her and humbly suffering alongside him, the resurrection was possible. And from Christ’s resurrection, we have new life.

Surrendering to the Holy Spirit can be difficult, but the end result is always more beautiful.

Planning the liturgy involved the most prayer and discernment. We have many friends and family members who are not Catholic, so we wanted to make the liturgy as beautiful and elevating as possible to draw everyone deeper into the mystery of the Mass and marriage.

Nathan and I opted to walk down the aisle together at the beginning of Mass in lieu of my dad escorting me. While this is an uncommon choice at contemporary Catholic weddings, it is a richly symbolic approach that visibly communicates the covenant we are making with each other and with God (see Genesis 15 for how God seals His covenant with Abraham).

It also makes it clear that no one was “giving me away” to Nathan. We were freely choosing this and hopeful of God’s blessing. To spend a few special moments with my dad, I had a first look with him in the bride’s room.

We chose Tobit 8:4b-8, Psalm 34, Romans 12:1-2, 9-18, and John 2:1-11 for our readings. St. Raphael is a key figure in the book of Tobit, and we credit him for helping us find each other through his prayer for the wise choice of a marriage partner.

We invited everyone to glorify and praise God for his goodness during the psalm. In the passage from Romans, St. Paul describes the life of a Christian in bold, resounding phrases, reminding us to serve others through our marriage in the most beautiful way possible: the Way itself. In the Gospel, Mary, our greatest intercessor, tells Jesus, “They have no wine.” Wine is a symbol of joy. She wants us to have joy and asks her son--whom she knows can provide everlasting joy--to give it to us. In her humility and wisdom, she charges us with the command, “Do whatever he tells you.”

Continuing to honor and thank Mary, we offered her flowers as some of our dear college friends sang the ancient Carmelite hymn “Salve Mater Misericordiae.” It has been a tradition in our friend group to sing Marian hymns at each other’s weddings, so this was very special for us. It was our hope that this and the other music chosen would draw people closer to the beauty of God.

In keeping with our desire to show our guests the beauty of the Catholic faith, we invited everyone to pray the Liturgy of the Hours with us as the last “event” of the reception. The Dominicans at our college taught us these prayers and a beautiful version of the Salve Regina. This became part of our daily prayer while we were dating, so this was another way to share our spiritual life with our guests.

In the end, beauty triumphed.

The word we heard most as we spoke with family and friends about the wedding was “beautiful,” and that's exactly what we wanted. We wanted the whole day to be beautiful. We hoped to draw people into the beauty of the Mass and the sacrament of marriage, into the beauty of fellowship, and ultimately into the beauty of God.

But our wedding day was not just beautiful; it was authentic. By allowing God to work through our perspectives, talents, and desires, we were able to carry out his will in a way that was very distinctively us. Each one of us has a unique way of pointing towards God. Our way just so happened to include crayons, Night Prayer, SpongeBob references, classic rock, and Latin hymns.

A strong theme in our relationship, wedding planning, and now our marriage, has been surrender: handing everything over to God, because he writes the best love stories. He knows the most beautiful way to do things. Ask him, and he will guide you to the beauty you seek in the present moment.

It blows our minds that the astounding beauty we experienced that day isn’t even a fraction of what is waiting for us in Heaven, where we will finally, intimately, and fully encounter Beauty himself.

Photography: Soul Creations Photography | Church: Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church | Reception:St. Alphonsus Liguori Catholic Church Parish Hall | DJ / Band / Live Music: DJ Connection, Billy Kinsey | Cake Vendor: Becky’s Bake Shop and Floral (main cake) | Caterer: The Putnam Inn | Rentals: A Classic Party Rental | Bartender: The Putnam Inn | Dessert / Appetizer Bars: The Putnam Inn | Rings: Master Jewelers | Shoes: DSW | Bridal Gown: Blue House Bridal | Reception Venue: St. Alphonsus Liguori Catholic Church Parish Hall | Ceremony Venue: Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church | Groom’s Suit/Tux: Haggar | Bridesmaid Dresses: Azazie | Stationary / Invitations: Pretty Little Papers

February 27, 2019

Rebecca + Brian | Verdant Church House Wedding

February 27, 2019/ Editor Spoken Bride

Despite friends’ enthusiastic intentions, neither Brian nor Becca was overly thrilled to try out swing dancing at the Catholic student center. But when Brian first saw Becca during the dance lesson, he initiated a strategic plan. “If I stand next to her, we’ll have to be partners,” he thought.

He was right--and rather successful! Brian only had to dip her once, and Becca was smitten. But there was one major obstacle to Brian’s pursuit: she was already dating someone else.

And so, Brian and Becca’s friendship grew gently and quietly. It was nourished by a boisterous group of mutual friends, regular communal night prayer, spontaneous theology debates, swing dancing, and $2 Sunday night dinners in the church basement.

Over a year later, Becca had been single for several months, and God told Brian the time was right, as the Lord would over and over with each milestone in their relationship. Also present at each milestone would be the Author of Love, fully present in the Blessed Sacrament:

Whispering in the silence of the adoration chapel, Brian first professed his affection to Becca, thinking it wouldn’t be returned.

Exclaiming prayers of thanksgiving in the same chapel some weeks later, they delighted in just having made things “official”.

On one knee in front of the altar and tabernacle several years later, Brian proposed in the very spot he hoped to soon marry Becca.

Two weeks before their wedding, kneeling in front of the tabernacle, they consecrated themselves to Mary.

Their hope for their consecration day, the Feast of the Annunciation, was that their yes to Mary would echo Mary’s yes to God, which would foreshadow their upcoming yes to each other on their wedding day.

To remind themselves of their consecration to God, Mary, and each other, Brian and Becca had their wedding bands engraved with the Latin phrase “totus tuus”, which means “totally yours.”

From the Bride: For years, I had been unsure of how it was possible to wholly dedicate myself to God and a husband at the same time. This question bothered me a lot, and I spent a lot of time praying about it.

I knew the answer, but I didn’t always feel it in my heart, especially early in my discernment with Brian. And yet, by the time I saw him standing at the end of the aisle, I deeply felt and knew the response to my years of “unsure-ness”—to say yes to God was to say yes to Brian.

Because our sacrament of marital love finds its origin in the Author of Love, we wanted to make sure the wedding pointed back to God in every way. We spent a lot of time selecting readings that we thought would be fruitful and eye-opening for both our non-Catholic and Catholic guests. We also spent a lot of time choosing music.

Music is so powerful. Just like in the movies, when you know what you should think and feel in a scene because of the music, the same goes for weddings.

Hymns and melodies reserved for the sacred sphere give the listener a profound sense of God’s presence in the church. It sets the events occurring inside the church apart from any other thing that happens outside.

We were blessed to have a spectacular organist and cantor, as well as a talented group of friends who sang some tear-jerking polyphony acapella. After the wedding, we were very happy to hear from several guests that they appreciated how the the Mass and ceremony were incredibly reverent.

I’ll let G.K. Chesterton sum up our attitude toward the reception: “for economy is far more romantic than extravagance.” Who said you need a ton of money to have a great party?

Brian and I enjoyed the romance of creativity with less funds, making the reception more entertaining with items that didn’t cost much. For example, the guestbook consisted of guests’ suggestions for bucket list ideas for Brian and I written on paper circles. The circles were then clipped to ribbons for a pretty and fun display. We got everything from “take your parents and in-laws on a cruise” to “conquer Lithuania using only a spoon and an Ethernet cable”.

Instead of clinking glasses for a kiss, guests clinked their glasses to get everyone’s attention. Then the glass-clinkers could sing a song, do a dance, or recite a poem about love and the bride and groom. It was hilarious!

The best performance was from one of our seminarian friends who clinked his glass, solemnly stood, and began “a reading from Sacred Scripture…” reciting super love-y lines from Song of Songs with perfect comedic timing and facial expressions.

After dinner, two friends taught a group dance called the ring dance, and many of our guests joined in for this crazy and fun mix of partner switching! My dad and I also surprised everyone (Brian included) with a father-daughter dance of Bollywood, ballroom, and dorky retro dance moves that my sister and I had mixed and choreographed some months before. Hearkening to our first encounter with each other, there was also lots of swing dancing throughout the night.

Brian and I couldn’t believe how not nerve-wracking, peaceful, and perfect the day was. We kept repeating to each other, “that was so beautiful and perfect! God is so good!”

From the Groom: It is awesome and inspiring when I consider the events of our wedding day in the context of God’s divine plan.

From the very moment that our souls were conceived in the mind of God, he had this day already awaiting us, and we set forth on a new path amidst his blessings and joys.

I had no qualms or second thoughts as I approached the altar and waited impatiently for Becca to do the same. I thought over and over to myself, “I was made for this.” You—as finite as a moment in eternity, and yet an eternal soul—were created for the mission entrusted to you by the all-powerful God of the universe. So be excited! Do not be afraid! God will never abandon his faithful servants.

From the Bride: We have the same favorite moment of our wedding day: kneeling together in front of Mary after Communion, saturated in the angelic singing of the Arcadelt Ave Maria by a choir of friends. We had doubly given our lives away to God and to each other, leaving us at once totally empty and totally full. Nothing had ever felt more right. Neither of us are criers, but we both had tears in our eyes.

To close, I want to pass along an incredibly useful piece of advice I received from my best friend. If you’re nervous about the crowds on your wedding day, think of all the faces turned toward you as you walk down the aisle. Yes, think of them. It might be a lot of faces, but all those people love you and your fiancé, and you and your fiancé love them.

Thus, there is nothing to worry about, because you are surrounded by love.

Photography: Soul Creations Photography - Spoken Bride Vendor | Church: St. Alphonsus Liguori Roman Catholic Church - Zionsville, IN | Reception: St. Alphonsus Liguori Roman Catholic Church - Zionsville, IN 46077 | Catering: The Juniper Spoon | Clutches: Tina Frantz Designs | Bridesmaids Dresses: AZAZIE | Bridal Gown: David's Bridal | Bridal Shoes: Ve-Ve's Dance Company | DJ: AMS Entertainment & Audio/Visual | Rings: Diamonds Direct, Monique Fine Jewelry | Jewelry: Tiffany & Co. | Cake: Confectioneiress Cupcakes & Sweets

February 13, 2019

Abby + Blair | Classic Indiana Wintertide Wedding

February 13, 2019/ Editor Spoken Bride

Sometimes cherished friends from the past unexpectedly reappear, and love can flourish even stronger.

This was the story with Abby and Blair, who met and became friends in junior high. At the time, their “young love” didn’t last very long, to the disappointment of their mothers.

But God had other plans. After going in separate ways after high school, Abby and Blair were suddenly reunited. This time, their companionship blossomed into a deeper romantic love, and they began discussing engagement and their desire for marriage.

After a year-long engagement, their lifelong friendship finally transformed at the altar into a lifelong covenant of married love.

From The Bride: Blair and I met in the 8th grade. We didn’t go to the same school, but I was on a club swim team with him and his twin sister, Alison.

Alison and I became fast friends and began spending a lot of time together. As my friendship with her grew, Blair and I began talking more and eventually starting “dating.” Unfortunately, our young love didn’t last longer than a month. We ran around with the same friend group in high school but never considered dating again.

Our mothers always teased us about getting back together. I knew they both would have loved it.

After senior year, Blair went on to Wabash College, and I went to Indiana Wesleyan. Later, during the summer before our sophomore year of college, we both ended up back in Kokomo, Indiana looking for a summer job. As I was beginning my search, my grandma told me about an open camp counselor position at the local YMCA summer camp. I thought this sounded fun, especially since I began my job hunt late and had no other pending opportunities up my sleeve.

I sent in my application, hoping they still had a spot. My mother, a friend of one of the camp directors, made a call on my behalf. The YMCA told her that they didn’t have any spots left, but they would make an exception for me.

I was excited to begin but also a little nervous because I didn’t know anyone else who was working there that summer. Imagine my surprise when I walked in on the first day and saw Blair sitting in a chair, ready for our first team meeting. We exchanged casual hellos and went on our way. But as the summer went on, we began talking more, even outside of camp.

I was beginning to really like him and looked forward to the days we would work together. I could tell he liked me too because he starting flirting with me--I mean teasing me. By the end of the summer, we were officially an “item,” and I couldn’t have been happier.

We were both a little nervous about going back to school and not seeing each other everyday, but we decided to make it work. I would visit him at Wabash, and he would visit me at IUPUI (Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis) . We spent every weekend together and sometimes would even meet half-way during the week.

Our mothers were thrilled that we were in love. We began talking about marriage the first year we dated. Somehow, we both knew we wanted to be together forever.

So on November 11, at the biggest football game of the year at Wabash, Blair got down on one knee and proposed in front of everybody in the stands. All our family and friends were there. It was the most amazing day and something we will never forget.

I always knew I wanted our wedding to be simple and classic. We chose the month of December because we both love winter and the snow that comes with it. Besides, I had dreamed of a winter wedding since middle school.

We had a little over a year to plan the big event, which gave us plenty of time. Unfortunately, Blair graduated in May, and I graduated in December, our wedding month. This made planning a little stressful and overwhelming at times, but my mother and close friends helped tremendously. I don’t know what I would have done without them.

Our venues were easy to choose. St. Patrick Catholic Church, Blair’s home parish, is not only very special to us, but also the most beautiful church in town. Our reception took place at The Bel-Air, a gorgeous banquet hall close to the church. I was so excited and relieved when we secured both venues.

After that, we focused on finding the dress, which was such a fun day. My mother’s best friend came into town from Florida, and we had a great time trying on dresses. I ended up choosing the first dress I put on. It was perfect. After that, everything else seemed to fall into place.

Finally, it was the wedding week, and my family from Florida was in town. The night before the wedding, I thought the morning would never come, I was so ready and excited for my wedding day to arrive.

I was up bright and early with my wedding party as we left for the salon. My mother and aunt made breakfast, and we all had fun enjoying the whole salon to ourselves while we got ready. After that, the day seemed to fly by.

Before I knew it, I was a bride walking towards Blair, and everything else faded away. The nuptial Mass was beautiful and emotional. We were finally a married couple!

Then it was picture time. We hid it pretty well, but December 30 was definitely one of the coldest days of the year. We braved the icy wind for some amazing pictures taken outside the church and then moved on to a local mansion. Here we endured the cold again to try and capture sweet memories.

Once the pictures were taken, our wedding party jumped into the limo and headed to the reception. My mother had graciously put together a basket for all of us filled with champagne, chocolate, and mints. I’ll never forget spending that special time with our closest friends.

When we arrived at the Bel-Air, I was speechless. The hall was absolutely stunning. A few of my mother’s close friends helped decorate before the ceremony, and it was more beautiful than I ever could have imagined.

We spent some time freshening up before we made our big introduction, and right after we were announced as “Mr. and Mrs.” we went into our first dance. Dancing with my new husband was a feeling I will never forget. Dinner and dancing followed, along with Blair and I greeting each and every one of our guests. It was so special to be able to personally speak to everyone who attended our wedding.

After we got a few dances in, it was time to head out for the night. Before hopping into the limo, we found our both families and gave them enormous hugs. It was such an exceptional day, and we couldn’t have done it without them. Overall, our wedding day was filled to the brim with memories, emotions, smiles, and faith. It was absolutely perfect and everything I had ever dreamed of and more.

I know that without God, our marriage would mean nothing. We strove to make our special day all about Jesus, and I feel that is exactly what we did.

From the Groom: In the months leading up to our wedding, we were constantly reminded that our wedding day would be life-changing, and nothing would ever be the same after we both said "I do". Whether we heard it from friends and family, discussing the sacrament during our Pre-Cana classes, or in everyday preparation for the wedding, we were always aware of how sacred and serious our marriage would be.

But it didn't really settle in until I saw Abby walk down the aisle.

As she walked to me, remembering all the times I failed her during our courtship and engagement, I knew our union would be a holy imitation of Christ's love for the Church. From that moment on, we would begin to base our lives on the life of Christ, sacrificing ourselves for the good of each other.

From the Photographer, Sinikka Roher of Soul Creations Photography: As a photographer, I have learned that when you enter into a wedding day, there are a multitude of points where things can go wrong. However, on Abby and Blair’s wedding day, I doubted those points would come to pass.

I noticed the powerful presence of the Lord’s peace when Blair genuflected before entering the church, said a prayer to our Blessed Mother, and was prayed over by the priest prior to the ceremony. And as I spent time with the bride, she reminded me of both Martha and Mary.

There was a hustle and bustle to get ready around her, but Abby stood patient and peaceful, waiting for her time just as Mary had. Then, moments before the Mass began, her preparation mindset took over, and I saw Martha in her too.

Brides tend to be either a Martha or a Mary, but Abby beautifully embodied both before, during, and after her ceremony. She blissfully walked down the aisle, laughed carelessly at the cold air that chilled her wedding party in the winter weather, and delicately checked in now and then on the timeline of the day.

Abby and Blair's big day was one of perfect harmony between the celebratory environment of a wedding and the sacramental beauty of their marriage covenant. It was incredible to capture it in it's entirety.

February 06, 2019

Elizabeth + Matthew | Ethereal Irish Castle Wedding

February 06, 2019/ Editor Spoken Bride

Note: A version of this feature was previously published on Style Me Pretty.

Elizabeth and Matthew met on a study abroad program through Christendom College. Elizabeth was a student from the University of Dallas, and Matthew went to Christendom.

Their story revolves around the beautiful country of Ireland and its many ancient landmarks. They met at the top of Bunratty Castle during their studies, were engaged at Ashford Castle, and had their wedding reception at Dromoland Castle.

Their special day was a “taste of the eternal wedding feast” that Elizabeth and Matthew aspire to journey towards together. It was a time of celebration not only for the bride and groom, but of all the loved ones who had prepared them to give themselves wholly to each other in marriage.

From the Bride: My middle name is ‘Anne,’ and the summer I met Matt for the first time I said a St. Anne novena for my future husband. I met Matt in Ireland, in a castle, on the last day of that novena. I didn't tell him until we were engaged.

Our faith was very important to both of us from the outset, but as we started dating it became clear that God intended us to be together to help us grow in our faith. Matt is brilliant and knows theology well, so as we dated, I fell more and more in love with the Church herself--with her teachings, history, and tradition. Matt always says that I helped him fall more deeply in love with the person of Christ, and that I encouraged his relationship with the Father. Looking back, I am very grateful for these complementary gifts.

Matt and I were long distance on and off during our dating relationship, so a huge part of our faith journey became praying together over the phone. Whether it was saying a rosary or nightly prayers, it was very unitive and foundational to the success of our relationship. We became huge fans of the Nine Month Novena to Our Lady. We have said it several years in a row and try to never miss a night of prayer together. St. Joseph has also been a great advocate and intercessor for us. Before the wedding, we asked close friends and family to say a novena to St. Joseph for us.

After we were engaged (in Ireland!), Matt made sure that we went to Knock Shrine for daily Mass. He wanted the Eucharist to be the heart of our day. When he proposed, he said many beautiful things that made me well up with happy tears, but the one I can remember exactly is when he said:

"Thank you for truly helping me to be a better man. Your love of Christ has changed me and made my own relationship with God stronger. I want to spend the rest of my life loving and serving him as I love and serve you.”

Matt and I wanted to get married in Ireland to encourage people to come and truly enjoy time away and being together, almost like a spiritual retreat. This is why we hosted events for the week leading up to the wedding, like providing two days of tours for our almost 220 guests! We wanted to shower our guests with love and spoil them. They all played pivotal roles in our life and formation, so this was our way of saying thank you.

A marriage is made between two people, but it takes the love and sacrifices of many people to prepare a husband and wife to fully, joyfully, and selflessly say yes to the other.

We believe that God gifted us with a special meeting and a sweet story in Ireland because he knows our hearts well; we both love the power of story and seeing meaning in small details. We wanted to finish one chapter of our life and begin a new one in the place that held sweet memories for us. Memories like the early days of “falling into friendship,” as Matt says, and getting engaged. It only seemed fitting that we should get married in Ireland!

The wedding Mass was truly the heart of our wedding day. We strove to highlight the beauty of the liturgy and the magnificence of the music. We decided on a Latin Mass with Mozart for the wedding parts, along with a full choir and five instrumentalists--everything from oboe to organ! I spent hours and hours creating a program which would offer the translation of the Mass, the lyrics of the music, and other responses. We also included meditations in the program. A favorite was the “I Thirst For You” meditation we included after communion.

We saw our nuptial Mass as a potential moment of invitation for people who had never experienced the richness of the Catholic liturgy. For some of our dear friends, this was the only time they would ever step into a Catholic church.

A very important part of the Mass for us was the kissing of the crucifix. After we had said our vows and before we kissed each other, we had our priest bless a special crucifix that my brother brought for us from Rome.

The prayer is powerful, saying that while we are each other's joy and path to heaven, we are also each other's cross. In moments of suffering or anger, we were to look at this cross and remember that we vowed these promises before God, who would sustain us.

That same crucifix now hangs across from our bed. It is the first thing we see in the morning and the last thing we see at night. It has given both of us the joy and strength to get through difficult moments and is a true reminder of the the calling to “die to oneself.”

For my “something old,” my mom and grandma cut parts of their wedding dresses and had a special message embroidered on it for me. They sewed it into my gown, and it was a sweet surprise.

For “something borrowed,” I put my baby brother Gabriel’s hospital bracelet in a sewn-on pocket. He passed away a few hours after birth, and we wanted to honor him. We also played “Gabriel’s Oboe” during the processional in memory of him.

For “something blue,” I cut part of a pink and blue sock that was my little sister, Bella’s, who has Trisomy 18, and had it stitched into my gown. She loves pink, and blue is the color of Trisomy 18 awareness. At the reception, we had a special dance with Bella, the light of our life. Everyone in my family held her and danced with her for part of the song.

Our wedding favors were handmade rosaries crafted by a friend. We put them in little muslin pouches that had our custom wedding crest on them and included a card asking our guests to pray for us as we lived out our vows. My signature drink was ‘The Golden Rose,’ a nod to Our Lady of Knock in Ireland who is also called the Golden Rose.

From the time I was little, my dad and I have watched the 1990s Pride and Prejudice miniseries every year because he always said I was “his Lizzie” and completely like Elizabeth Bennet. In many ways, Matt is my generous, principled, and kind Darcy. When we were picking our first dance song, we wanted something simple and poignant, so we picked “The Secret Life of Daydreams” by Jean-Yves Thibaudet from the Pride and Prejudice soundtrack. It was perfect.

The best way I can describe the bliss of our wedding day is to recall a moment of that night. As Matt and I were sitting at the table, married, and “incandescently happy” he whispered in my ear:

“This is the last time, on this side of heaven, that these people we love most in the world will be together in one room. This is a taste of the wedding feast.”

He was completely right. It captured the joy, the tears, and the sanctity of the moment. it was a taste of the eternal wedding feast.

The last thing our priest friend said to me before he celebrated our nuptial Mass was, “You are about to receive one of the greatest gifts of your life.” I said, “I know it, I love him!” Father smiled and said, “Yes, that is true. He is your gift. But the gift I was referring to specifically was the heavenly treasure chest of graces that is inexhaustible and which you will receive today. God will never leave you. His grace will always be there to strengthen your marriage, you just need to call upon that grace.”

Looking back a year later, I can't believe how quickly the time has flown. I am grateful for such a blissful, meaningful wedding day, and I wouldn't change a thing. When people used to tell me it was the “best day of their lives,” I don't think I ever really believed them. Now I do!

Film by www.storyofeve.com

Photography: Laura Gordon Photography | Church: Holy Trinity Abbey, Adare Ireland | Reception: Dromoland Castle, Ireland | Officiant:Fr. Anthony Sortino | Wedding Planner: Lauryn Prattes | Gown by: Custom Gown Designed by the Bride | Purchased at: White Swan Bridal | Headpiece by: Jennifer Behr | Bridesmaids dresses by: BHLDN and Nordstrom | Jewelry by: Engagement Ring – KC Designs, Wedding Bands – custom made from grandparents and parents wedding bands by Jorge Adeler | Tuxedos/Groomsmen Attire by: Canali Tux for the groom, The Black Tux for groomsmen | Make up Artist: Astrid Fix for makeup and Hair was Gabrielle Rogers from Salon Audrey | Caterer: Dromoland Castle Hotel | Wedding Cake: MM Cookies (Handled Cake and Dessert Table) | Invitations by: Appleberry Press | Flowers by: Holly Chapple | Rentals/Tent: Perfect Details Ireland
Entertainment by: The Bentley Boys | Photography by: Laura Gordon | Videography by: Story of Eve | Transportation (limos/carriages, etc.): Carrig Coaches and the carriage for some of the photo shoots was provided by the hotel

January 16, 2019

Christine + Mark | Traditional Chinese Wedding

January 16, 2019/ Editor Spoken Bride

Each day from January 13-20, Spoken Bride's distinctively Catholic wedding vendors will be featured through Instagram takeovers and contributions on the blog.

Are you recently engaged? We invite you to learn more about the gifted wedding industry professionals who partner with us through the Spoken Bride Vendor Guide.

Christine and Mark’s Washington, D.C. wedding was a beautiful intertwining of traditional Catholic nuptials and Chinese customs.

Their relationship began when Christine stumbled upon Mark’s profile on CatholicMatch. It had been months since Christine began praying to Blessed Karl of Austria for her future husband. Even though she had seen many interesting profiles on CatholicMatch, she felt there was something special about Mark’s.

Christine didn’t start a conversation, but instead waited to see what Mark would do, since the site allowed a him to see who had visited his profile.

She didn’t have to wait long.

From the Groom: From the first moment I saw Christine’s profile picture, I couldn’t believe my eyes. And after reading Christine’s profile, I was even more certain she was too good to be true. This was the internet version of love at first sight, and I sent a message right away.

From the Bride: Every time Mark talks about this, I can’t help but laugh. He is always so sweet. When I first saw Mark’s profile on CatholicMatch, I felt there was something special about him. And ever since then, I kept him in my daily prayers and waited for God to do the rest.

Mark: After exchanging a few messages on CatholicMatch, I invited Christine to pray together over the phone. She only had thirty minutes for our first call, but we spent most of that time praying the rosary together.

After that we started a tradition which we have continued even when in very different time zones: praying daily Compline (Night Prayer) together, usually over the phone.

Christine: Praying together always reminds me God is at the center of our relationship. I’m always excited to pray with Mark because it is such a powerful experience for us.

A few short weeks after we began speaking, May—the month of Our Lady—arrived, and it was time for me to graduate from my master’s program. My parents and sister came to D.C. to attend my graduation ceremony.

I had been telling my parents a lot about Mark, and they really liked him, or at least my descriptions of him. On May 11, a couple days before my family would return home to China, my mom suggested we set up a meeting with Mark. Although I felt a little uncertain, knowing Mark’s busy work schedule, and, more importantly, that Mark and I had never met in person, I reached out to him to see whether he would be able to meet the next day.

Mark: That was a very busy time for me at work, but I pulled a very late night and managed to meet Christine and her family for coffee the next day. Luckily, I was too tired to be nervous! I was overjoyed to meet Christine’s family and moved by how genuinely kind and joyful they were.

Christine: My family and I really enjoyed meeting Mark, too. In fact, Mark and I soon began going on dates: attending Sunday Mass together at St. Mary’s in Washington D.C., followed by lunch and activities like visiting museums and going to concerts. After Mass, we would usually pray together before the image of Blessed Karl.

As we got to know each other better, we hung out more often. We watched the Fourth of July fireworks on the National Mall, went hiking in Shenandoah National Park, and visited the elderly at a nursing home. Through it all, we enjoyed every moment together.

Fast forward to October 2017. We had been discerning engagement and working through a book titled 101 Questions To Ask Before You Get Engaged. This went on until one Saturday when we visited St. Mary’s. Just as we were finishing our prayer before the image of Blessed Karl, Mark proposed.

What a joy that we were engaged in the Real Presence of Our Lord!

A mutual friend played my favorite Chinese hymn on the organ (Mark had remembered I had sung the hymn while we were praying together one evening), and the proposal was filmed by Mark’s best friend and soon-to-be best man.

We learned that our archdiocese required six months of marriage preparation. During this time we would continue to grow in our relationship and discern our vocation. We also found, to our surprise and delight, that May 12, 2018—the one-year anniversary of the first time we met in person—was a Saturday, and we decided to set that as our wedding date.

The wonderful Fr. Martin Yip agreed to meet with us for monthly marriage preparation sessions focusing on the sacramental meaning of marriage. We also attended an Engaged Encounter retreat.

This provided a precious opportunity for us to spend focused time getting to know each other and diving deeply into various practical topics, all under the guidance of experienced married couples and a priest.

One month before the wedding, we visited a couple from our parish who have been married more than thirty years. They warned us of potential challenges in married life and provided advice and insights from the unique perspective of Chinese culture.

We were overjoyed when Bishop Mario Dorsonville agreed to celebrate our nuptial Mass. Another joyful surprise was that Fr. Conrad Murphy was willing to be the Master of Ceremonies when we couldn’t find another deacon available for our wedding day.

From the very beginning, we knew the nuptial Mass would be the most important part of our wedding day. So we spent a lot of time preparing the Mass program in both Chinese and English. It turned out to be very beneficial in helping us and our guests get better acquainted with the various parts of the nuptial Mass.

Our liturgy was celebrated at St. Mary’s in D.C.. Although we belong to the Our Lady of China Pastoral Mission, ours was the first nuptial Mass in ten years to be celebrated at St. Mary’s for a couple in our community. Our parish family was excited for us and showered us with so much love and joy. They celebrated our engagement in the parish hall and supported us through the wedding preparation and our wedding day.

One week before the wedding, my family travelled from Shanghai to Washington. It was so exciting because I hadn’t seen my family for a year. They helped with the wedding favors and decorating the reception venue. Meanwhile, Mark’s parents prepared heart-shaped chocolates for our guests and set up the rehearsal dinner.

In the early afternoon of our wedding day, we had a traditional Chinese tea ceremony, customary for weddings in China.

We knelt before our parents and offered tea to them, showing our respect and gratitude to them for all the years of love and care.

In return, we received gifts in red envelopes from them.

Our nuptial Mass was very beautiful and went quickly, but we enjoyed every moment. My brother and sister did the readings, and our parents offered the gifts. When Bishop Dorsonville introduced us as “Mr. and Mrs. Ma,” we had our first-ever kiss on the lips at the altar. With the violin and organ playing Ave Maria, we prayed before a statue of Mary, offering our marriage to Our Lady.

Our reception was held at Phoenix Park Hotel, a historic hotel in Capitol Hill. The hotel ballroom and our honeymoon suite were lovely. They had been decorated with love and care by our families and friends. My brother made a video using a collection of our photos from childhood to the time we met, which was played at the beginning of the reception. It was received by the audience with lots of laughter and awws.

Right after we entered the ballroom, we played a violin-piano duet of Canon in D. Mark was on violin, and I played piano. My dad presented raffle prizes of his own excellent calligraphy and Chinese traditional painting.

Finding each other and taking our first steps in marriage has been so amazing, and we are excited to continue our journey together!

From the Photographers: Christine and Mark's wedding was such a joy-filled event that uniquely combined beautiful cultural and liturgical traditions.

We loved witnessing and documenting their day, and especially loved how they planned a wedding that really fit their personalities. For example, during their reception they replaced the usual dance party with a talent show and games, which was so fun.

More than anything, we loved seeing how tangible their love was and how joyful they were to be husband and wife. It felt so real during their portrait session at the Jefferson Memorial. We wish them all the best for their marriage!

Photography: An Endless Pursuit - SPOKEN BRIDE VENDOR | Church: St. Mary Mother of God Catholic Church, Washington DC | Wedding Reception: Phoenix Park Hotel | Ceremony Site: St. Mary Mother of God Catholic Church | Florists: Louisa Sun | Reception Site & Tea Ceremony Site: Phoenix Park Hotel | Videographer: Onyxx Communications LLC | Cake: Fluffy Thoughts | Reception: MC
David Hu | Hair & Make-up: Iris Zou

January 02, 2019

Renae + Steven | Winter Clubhouse Wedding

January 02, 2019/ Editor Spoken Bride

Renae and Steven met shortly before Renae entered into a dating fast. During this time, she grew to know and love Steven as a brother in Christ, sparking a desire in both of them to get to know each other on a deeper level.

And so their courtship began. Through the intercession and guidance of the Blessed Mother and St. Joseph, Steven and Renae were engaged and then married in God’s peaceful and perfect timing.

From the Bride: Steven and I met in a young adult church group. We got to know each other better over the next year--during which I began a dating fast. I knew at the time that I needed to start treating the men in my life as brothers in Christ instead of potential suitors. This profoundly changed the way I interacted with the guys around me.

Just days after my dating fast ended, I returned to the young adult group. I was still treating the men in the group as brothers in Christ, confident my new perspective was both healing and consistent. Steven later told me this was the time he started desiring to know me better.

It truly is by God’s grace that we grew interested in each other when we did. Once we started dating, we quickly discovered our confirmation saints, St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila, worked together. This led to great discussions about our individual spiritualities, which greatly aided our relationship discernment.

On April 10th, I began my preparation for consecration to Jesus through Mary using 33 Days to Morning Glory by Fr. Michael Gaitley.

I didn't know that in just twelve days, my future fiancé would be driving to my parents' house to ask their permission for my hand in marriage.

After thirty three days of prayer, I made my consecration to Jesus through Mary. That same day, May 13th, Steven and I finished our novena to Our Lady of Fatima. It was the 100th anniversary of the famous Marian apparitions in Portugal.

Steven chose that day to propose, in an antique mall from our first date.

Our engagement showed how in tune Steven was with my spirituality.

His loving awareness and connectedness allowed us to intentionally pray through the discernment process. And while I waited for a proposal, God taught me to trust in his timing.

I received the engagement ring Steven intended to propose with weeks after he’d initially asked. He had created a design of three infinity symbols merged into a cross. This was etched into the inside ridge of the ring. The main diamond came from my mother’s engagement ring, which originally came from my grandmother’s engagement ring. It has become a family heirloom.

We knew weddings traditionally took place in the bride’s hometown church, but Steven agreed to a wedding in the church that has spiritually impacted me the most: St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Anderson, Indiana, connected to the school where I worked for four years. During my career, I have spent many days of prayer there at school Masses and in Adoration.

Even the building itself reflected who we are as a couple: the old church had been well worn over time, just like the times Steven and I had fallen and turned to God’s grace. Likewise, St. Mary’s has long relied on the intervention of caring parishioners to keep it a living and growing parish.

My classroom was where the bridal party got ready the morning of the wedding. I was ecstatic to see that my students had written “Congrats, Mrs. Cox” on the the chalkboard! The groom and groomsmen got ready in the library. Spending this precious time with our bridal parties before the ceremony calmed our nerves and allowed us to be in community with those who truly cared about our future. Steven played a board game with his groomsmen, and my sister brought tea and scones for the ladies.

Taking time for prayer with my bridesmaids before the ceremony allowed me to deeply understand the support they desired to give me, on our wedding day and throughout all the years to come.

They are still my rock when grief strikes because they are so firmly rooted in Christ.

The Blessed Mother and St. Joseph played a huge part in our courtship. Our Lady of Fatima was present and represented in my handkerchief, and my sister brought a small statue of her for the time before the ceremony.

I had a family friend design a choker necklace with the Miraculous Medal attached to the clasp. For me, this represented how Mary has always “had my back.” The idea came from a friend who always wore a Miraculous Medal on the clasp of her cross necklace.

I wore my sister’s veil. She was the first of the girls in my family to get married. My twin sister also wore the veil on her wedding day; it has quickly became a family tradition.

We met in the annex of the church before the ceremony, with Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Pieta both in the room with us. These moments felt powerful and prayerful, even as I also felt the jittery nervousness of the morning.

At the reception, we had our father/daughter and mother/son dances. My father and I danced to a Dean Martin song--one I always remembered my dad dancing to when he felt happy. Steven had tissues prepared for his mother, and they still joke about the joyful tears she shed as they danced together.

Throughout the entire process, Steven and I strove to understand that our marriage wouldn’t be all sunshine and roses.

So we gathered an amazing support system filled with the Christ-centered people in our lives.

We truly felt the love of Jesus in those around us during our engagement and on our wedding day. Now that we are united in Christ through the sacrament of matrimony, we feel we can endure whatever life throws at us.

We both feel peace knowing the other will keep each of us focused on God. And I often remind Steven our marriage is a means to help each other to heaven. We strive for this through the hardships we experience together, forgiving the sins of the other, enduring the selfishness we both exhibit, and being thankful for the beauty we witness in our marriage.

December 26, 2018

Mary + James | Sacred Heart Cathedral Wedding

December 26, 2018/ Editor Spoken Bride

Mary and James first connected online, and it quickly became obvious that they were both looking for similar qualities in a spouse.

Although circumstances kept them long distance, their relationship remained strong, and the Lord blessed them with an unexpected grace: a wedding on the solemnity of his Sacred Heart.

From the Bride: James and I met on Catholic Match. We were both looking for someone who shared our faith and way of life--the most important things to us. After that, we dated long-distance between Jefferson City and St. Louis for a year and a half.

Before boarding his train back home one day, James asked if I wanted to go visit St. Peter’s church nearby. Next to the statue of Saint Louis, James told me that our time in the city had taught him that the world was not enough. He wanted to give me more than this world could offer, just like Saint Louis himself who lived his life not for this world but the next.

He proposed to me at St. Peter’s in Kirkwood, Missouri. Needless to say, I said yes!

Shortly after getting engaged James left to Army JAG (Judge Advocate General) Training in Fort Benning, Georgia, and Charlottesville, Virginia for five months. During this time, our Pre-Cana classes were put on hold while he completed his training and I finished grad school.

When he returned we hit the ground running with our Pre-Cana courses at the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis under the supervision of Deacon Todd.

A month before our wedding we were told it fell on the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart. This meant we would not be able to use any traditional wedding readings or psalms. Although we did not realize it when we picked the date, we were now presented with a great opportunity.

It was a chance to show our guests the love of Christ found in His Most Sacred Heart and the reflection of this love found in the marriage of a husband and wife.

Our wedding mass was special in many ways. The biggest grace was celebrating our big day on the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart in the beautiful Cathedral Basilica. Another fun and unique bonus was when the Archdiocesan Handbell Choir volunteered to play for the wedding, since I am a member! Hearing the beautiful bells ring throughout the cathedral was such a wonderful gift to us.

Additionally, even though James and I both have big families, we wanted everyone to have a part in the Mass if possible. Every member of the family was either in the wedding party or had a role as a lector, usher, or gift-bearer. Our photographer told us that our Mass was the most spiritual that he has ever witnessed.

Right before I walked down the aisle my bridesmaids and I began to pray, I could not hold back the tears of joy because I was overwhelmed with love and gratitude for the wonderful ladies in my life. As the tears began to flow my future sister-in-law took over the prayer, somehow taking the words right out of my mouth. It was such a special moment I will always remember.

December 19, 2018

Kimber + Stephen | Vintage American Baseball Wedding

December 19, 2018/ Editor Spoken Bride

Kimber and Stephen met through the invitation of a mutual friend. When they spent their first summer together in 2013, before Kimber went off to college, they began dating. Kimber had previously insisted on beginning school without a boyfriend, but something kept them together.

Looking back, Kimber and Stephen think this was the first “Jesus thing” in their history together.

Theirs is a beautiful story of heartbreak, conversion, and love. When they met, Kimber was not a religious person, and Stephen mourned this difference in their relationship. But distance, trust, prayer, and a semester in Ireland would change that.

Kimber and Stephen were married on a beautiful spring day in May 2018, grateful for the journey that had brought them to the altar.

From the Groom: On May 26, 2013, Kimber and I met for the first time; we were both invited to a mutual friend’s house for a bonfire. After that night, we got to know each other as the days of summer progressed and Kimber prepared to leave for college. In our short time together that summer, we started dating--even though she was adamant about starting school without a boyfriend.

But when the time came for Kimber to leave, we didn’t break up. We both believe this is what our best friend would call a “Jesus thing”.

Kimber was not a religious person when we first met. Early in our relationship, I asked her every week to come to church with me on Sunday, and she refused. As I began to imagine my future with someone not as faithful as I was, I was heartbroken, and I wasn’t sure how I could have a Catholic wedding.

I quietly held back on the topic of church around Kimber and prayed she would one day find her faith on her own. Nearly one year after we started dating, Kimber left for a semester abroad in Ireland. While she was there, she discovered the beauty of religion and changed her perspective on God.

She started going to Mass in Ireland, and when she came home she officially started her journey to become Catholic.

God has a plan for everyone. We just have to be patient.

Throughout our relationship—like any other—we had our ups and downs but never faltered. There was never a time when either of us considered breaking up because we knew we could work through anything with God’s help.

It was with this faith and love for each other that I decided to propose almost four years after our first summer together. With blessings from Kimber’s family, I secretly planned to propose on her capstone presentation day.

Knowing Kimber would be completely focused on preparing for an A+ presentation, I asked Kimber’s roommates to secretly get her “proposal-ready”. I wanted to pop the question on the “island” at Saint Mary’s College. Local legend says if you cross the bridge with the one you love, that is the person you will marry. I had walked Kimber across the bridge a few years before when I knew she was the one. Now I took her across to ask her to marry me.

On an April day, I asked Kimber to be my wife, and she was overcome with emotion. She had no idea how momenotus that day would be.

From the Bride: I became Catholic during my senior year of college, only a couple months before Stephen proposed. During the time leading up to my First Communion and Confirmation, we practiced our faith separately. We would go to church together on the weekends, but Stephen was much more comfortable in his relationship with God, while I was just in the beginning of mine.

I am so grateful Stephen didn’t push me during this time. He let me find the path to God on my own. When he proposed, we agreed it was important to both of us that we get married in the Catholic Church.

So on our wedding day, despite our different relationships with God, Stephen and I truly felt God’s presence together as we became one in flesh and in our faith.

Our wedding Mass was held at the church where Stephen and his family have been parishioners for years. In fact, the priest who gave Stephen his First Communion celebrated it. We were beyond excited when he agreed to officiate our wedding, and the planning truly began.

I went wedding dress shopping with my bridesmaids, mom, and college roommate, Maureen—I really hoped to find my dress that day, because Maureen would be in Ireland on our wedding day. Everyone knew trying to find the dress during the first outing was a large feat, but nearly seven try-ons later, by the grace of God I found the one.

We wanted a reception venue that was industrial and rustic, and the Armory fit our description perfectly. When we booked the place, it was still under construction, but we had faith the owner would finish in time and create a great atmosphere for the reception.

When selecting our vendors, we knew we wanted to provide a fun environment for everyone attending. We agreed that neither of us really wanted cake. So instead of having traditional wedding cake, we served a frozen yogurt bar that allowed guests to create their own desserts.

After all, the first reason we ever ended up together was because Stephen asked me to be his girlfriend on a frozen yogurt cup.

Our DJ stole the show with an awesome set list, and no one wanted to leave at the end of the night. He is a relative of mine, which made the evening even more special.

In the end, our vendors created a wonderful atmosphere, and our guests loved the frozen yogurt bar and photo booth. The pictures from the booth are priceless, and our guests were able to leave with precious memories from the evening.

The following morning as we first awakened as a married couple, we attended Mass at Our Lady of Loretto on Saint Mary’s College campus. The Mass felt strange because although it was normal for us to go there together, were were husband and wife, instead of boyfriend and girlfriend or engaged! It was the perfect way to start our married life.

I am overall grateful that, in the midst of all the planning, Stephen and I participated in a Pre-Cana program with our priest, Father Bob. We were nervous and excited to attend these meetings because we felt so ready to express and live our love for each other.

After that first meeting, all our nerves turned to excitement and a desire to keep moving forward. We wanted to keep learning about ourselves and what marriage meant in the eyes of God.

We talked about the sacredness of the sacrament and how it truly embodies the love between God and his people and the power of prayer as a couple.

Even though these meetings were difficult to attend because we both lived over an hour away with competing schedules, every minute was worth it. We believe Pre-Cana made us a stronger couple, ready for a lifetime together.

As we sit back and think about all the people that were part of our journey and all the chaotic moving pieces of a wedding, we can’t help but think about all the little “Jesus things” that led to us meeting each other, staying together, my conversion, and our perfect wedding day.

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