My first wedding blog

December 29, 2001 was the date of my first wedding as an officiant. A closed friend had asked me to officiate his upcoming wedding in Amarillo, Texas. I had helped my mom with her part time wedding coordinating as a kid and I had played piano and organ for some weddings back in the 80s, but this wedding in Amarillo was my first one where I was the minister. I lived in Fort Worth at the time and had never been to the panhandle. If you've never been to the Texas panhandle, winter is not the time for your first visit. The farther north I got the flatter and more desolate the landscape became. By the time I got to the church I had lost the will to live. The wedding was nice and unevetful. Not bad for a first.

My second wedding was back in Fort Worth a few months later. It was a cowboy wedding. The bride wore a lace wedding dress with 3 inch staletto-heal boots. The groom wore black jeans and a white cowboy shirt and a stetson hat. I wore my ministerial robe. Interesting mix to be sure. They drove off in a early 70s model pickup with beer cans tied to the bumber. Very Texas for a second wedding.

There were a couple of years between my second and third weddings. My third wedding was actually an anniversary celebration with a vow renewal. A friend and collegue of mine was a pastor and had asked me to officiate for him, which I was all too happy to do. Nothing unusual at this event. Pretty run-of-the-mill.

My life in weddings got a jump start in 2007. I finished my last regular church staff position as an interim pastor and was looking for a new part time job. I ended up taking a position that my mom found, something she wasn't interested in but thought I might like. Starting in March of 2007 I was a wedding coordinator for Belmont Mansion in Nashville, TN. Shortly after I started the lady who had been the senior coordinator stepped down and I became the lead coordinator. I found myself in a unique position being an ordained minister and working in a popular wedding venue as a wedding coordinator. It didn't take long for me to realize that I had found a new love, a new professional calling. I would be something new, something that nobody else had done. I would carve out a new hybrid niche as a wedding minister and wedding coordinator. By July 2007 I had my website and email domain up and running. My wedding career at Belmont was going along very nicely.

I was working a day-job for a large clothing manufacturing company while I did my weddings on the weekend. I even got two promotions at work which made it seem less and less likely that I would ever give up the security of my paycheck and benefits to pursue weddings as a full time career. I settled into a nice little routine. My weddings were my passion, my fun and they provided the bulk of the money for my vacation fund. It was a great system...while it lasted.

The recession hit my employer hard and I got laid of in January of 2009. I stood at a crossroads. I could throw myself out there into the worst job market in 25 years with everyone else who was job hunting, or I could follow my heart. With nothing to lose and everything to gain I decided to do whatever it took to make a full time career of my weddings. I had the blessing of a bit of a small golden parachute so I didn't have to panic about money, at least not for a while. I already had some of my own clients booked for 2009 even before the layoff, so I felt like a had a good start.

I spent a good week digging deep into Google doing market reasearch on wedding websites and venues in Nashville and Middle Tennessee. Before long I was contacting every venue owner and manager I could find and making house calls. I had business cards printed up as well as car magnets. I went all around town introducing myself to every venue that I could, offering my services as both a wedding officiant and a wedding coordinator. One of my early events was not a wedding...quite the other end of the spectrum. I was called on to coordinate a memorial service.

The family memebers were all from out of state and were actualy out of the country at the time of the death. I made arrangments with a local venue and a caterer and I helped the family pull everything together. I had preached many funerals in my days as a pastor, so this was very familiar territory. This one was quite different though. Neither the deceadant nor the family were people of strong religious faith. I wanted to be as accomodating and as respectful as possible, so I mainly acted as a facilitator and host. Several of the deceadant's friends spoke, some sang and one even played a drum solo. The most intersting and unique part of the service was the yoga presentation by some of her friends. Not being familiar with much of Yoga tradition, I wasn't sure what to expect. All I could imagine was group of leotard-clad women striking a pose on a rubber mat. When it came time for their portion of the service, they never even left their seats. They chanted. I don't know what they chanted, but it was in unison and it went on for quite a while. The friends and family were gracious and I was glad to have been able to help them during a most difficult time.

I feel the need to add a privacy statement to this first installment that will apply to this and all future blogs from me. I will always respect the privacy of all of my clients, vendors, associates and event guests. I will never mention anyone by name without their prior consent...no matter how funny their story is. When permission is not possible or appropriate, names and locations will be veiled to protect the innocent as well as the guilty.

More to come in post #2!