Luke And Isabella Get Married Season Two

“The best things in life come along when you stop looking” was the very wise introductory comment Luke made as we met to get to know each other. They found each other on line and with lots of jaded, why bother attitude, decided to meet any way. ” I could hardly get out of the car after our first meeting” said Isabella. “I was so drawn to this guy.” ” I knew in three weeks that it was time to stop looking,” said Luke.

So dates were had, friends and family gave their many thumbs up, surprise engagements were created and wedding planning was now the order of the day.

Enter a global pandemic!!!!

What do you do when a pandemic wipes out all your grand and glorious wedding plans?

When you are as in love and perfectly matched as Luke and Isabella, you go right ahead and say “I Do” in the backyard. Your jobs have either been wiped out or become soulless, but there is no stopping a love like this and so applying the wedding vow practices right away, he says: “Hey why don’t we move to a completely new place and start over?” She says “Wait What? I said I Do to marriage but not to jumping off of cliffs” yet she put her hand in his and off they jumped. Cue music and fade screen. End of Season One of Luke and Isabella Get Married!

They settle in their new home, happy to have new wonderful jobs and play “old married people” cuddling on the couch watching movies together and dreaming about their shared goals and happily ever after. For fun they roam through near by neighborhoods and imagine living in their dream house there.

And now it is a year later, time to celebrate their first anniversary, renew their vows and finally time to have their grand and glorious celebration with Dearly Beloveds.

Cue Music, Season Two of Luke and Isabella get married.

I absolutely love the process of getting to know couples in preparation for officiating their ceremony. I pretty much get swept up in their love story and the creative ideas start pouring in for how to make their ceremony unique and a beautiful expression of them and what they want for their special day. One really fun thing that often happens is that I get an idea for a “surprise addition” to the proceedings. Luke and Isabella gave their blessing for a surprise ending and I promised there would be no off color jokes or people jumping out of things. Off I go to hunt for the elements of the surprise and magic starts to ensure. The right things seem to show up and the connections with others who are in on the surprise makes it even more fun.

Luke and Isabella chose a completely delightful venue and eventually everyone was gathered. Cue processional music, groom, wedding party, bride and her father, both teary eyed and beaming with joy arrive at the alter. Under the also beaming (and very hot) afternoon sun, I had the joy of sharing Luke and Isabella’s love story and first year of marriage adventures with their guests. We even talked about Quantum Entanglement, a physics phenomenon in which separate points of light turn into a unified wave simply by being witnessed by a human being. The message being, love brings two separate individuals together, marriage vows begin the blending of those lights yet it is the BEARING WITNESS by the Dearly Beloveds that truly solidifies and strengthens the entanglement so it can hold for the happily ever after part. It was so fun to hear afterward that there were at least two physicists in the room and they were completely taken by surprise by the wedding physics lesson.

The whole day was designed to be a community blessing from these dear friends and family to the happy couple. You could feel the support in the room. These two are clearly very dearly loved and everyone was so happy to finally be allowed to gather to bear witness and extend their good tiding upon their vow renewals, rings and future going forward.

So as we wound down, I revealed to Luke and Isabella that for our closing prayer, their guests were going to sing a song to them, an affirmation of one of their dreams for their future, sung in the present tense to feel the joy of “it is already happening, NOW” and in so doing bring their dream into reality all the more easily and quickly.

Cue music, guests take our their secret song sheets and, at first a little hesitantly, but gradually fully engaged,

“OUR HOUSE IS A VERY VERY FINE HOUSE, WITH TWO CATS IN THE YARD, LIFE USED TO BE SO HARD, BUT NOW EVERYTHING IS EASY CUZ OF YOU.”

Bride and Groom move into a spontaneous embrace, hot and sweaty and flowing with tears, and everyone in the room, choked up and happily singing the refrain, La, la, la,la,la,la,la, bless the heck out of Luke and Isabella’s dream.

Time for a confirmation that we did indeed help their dream house to appear.

A cute little stuffed cottage AND two cats in the yard. ( Amazing what the universe provides to help an officiant make a point about magic and dreams coming true during a wedding ceremony.)

Thank you Dear Luke and Isabella for the absolutely joy and delight of presiding over your first anniversary and vow renewal celebration. You were adamant that there would be a Season Two of your Getting Married story and I was so happy to be there to help create and launch the first episode. May all the coming episodes be just as fun and filled with adventure. Your love is a blessing to our world and I can’t wait to see what is ahead for you.

love and blessings,

Officiant Grace

UPDATE!!!!!!! A year and a half later: I just received a message from Luke and Isabella. “You'll be delighted to know that your thoughtful blessing is becoming a reality as we speak! We are currently in the process of closing on our own very, very, very fine house, and sincerely believe you and all our wonderful guests played a part in making this happen.”

Wedding Wishes Really Do Come True. I could not be more thrilled for you, dear Luke and Isabella. Welcome Home!!!!

And a few words of appreciation from the Happy Couple.

“Working with Grace MacLeod was one of the highlights of planning and going forward with our Wedding. In such a short amount of time, Grace was able to capture our personalities and tell our story in a way that excited our guests, and made our Wedding so much more memorable. Her approach to the ceremony was complementary to our particular outlook on spirituality, which felt personal and connected well with everyone in attendance. Grace guided us through the process and kept us well informed at every step of the way. When she asked us if she could prepare a small surprise for the end of our ceremony, Grace went above and beyond our expectations, and made us feel as if we had known her our entire lives. We highly recommend Grace MacLeod’s services, and can’t thank her enough for an absolutely perfect Wedding day.” Luke & Isabella