{Bring Intimacy Back to Weddings}

Dear Bride-to-Be: 

“Weddings are increasingly notable for their amazing lack of intimacy, their evolution into industry,” commentator Jacki Lyden wrote in a report for NPR several years ago. And in our overly-commercialized, up-noised, garish culture, I share this idea over and over in an attempt to urge couples to “look inside” and follow their hearts first when planning their wedding.

In my book for same-sex couples (The Handkerchief Has Been Thrown!—just re-published in print form), I remind the reader of this dilemma. Suggesting ways to return intimacy to the wedding celebration, I encourage gay and lesbian couples to not just follow the fashion of “traditional” weddings, but to set a new standard inspiring all ceremonies to be more real and from the heart.

Unfortunately, Bridal Expos—those big gatherings that bring wedding vendors together with potential brides, grooms and assorted entourages—tend to boost the commercial, big-sexy-party aspect of modern weddings. (I was invited to have a book signing at a first-of-its-kind Same-Sex Wedding Expo recently. Aaaargh!! The epitome of “lack of intimacy.” Please guys, you can do better!)

Whether you’re marrying a man or a woman; whether your wedding is teensy-tiny or ballroom huge; whether you’re on a mountaintop or in a grand cathedral, you may want to hear what journalist S. Bryan Lowder has to say:  “I’m a gay man who wants to get married. But how do I have a wedding that’s not so … straight?” In other words, you don’t have to copy-cat the matchy-matchy, ho-hum aesthetic of many mainstream weddings—trends that have squeezed all the depth and intimacy out of the ceremony and celebratory festivities.

So, planning a wedding? Just don’t forget to bring your good taste, good sense, and especially your good heart along with you!

Love. Listen. Let go.

…with love from Cornelia

[Couples photograph: Courtesy of Martha Stewart Weddings]

The Handkerchief Has Been Thrown! 

Something Old & Something New for Same-Sex Couples 

is available on Amazon.

{Restoring Intimacy}

Dear Bride-to-Be: 

When a bride puts her attention mostly on the glamour, glitz and overly romantic “pomp,” it can drown out any intimacy at her wedding and in her relationship. “Weddings are increasingly notable for their amazing lack of intimacy, their evolution into industry,” National Public Radio commentator Jacki Lyden stated in her story, “Spectacle of Matrimony,” leading up to the wedding of Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky in the summer of 2010. In our celebrity-driven, appearance-crazed culture, weddings have “evolved into must-haves and appointment-list mega-spectacles,” Lyden continued.

But it’s not impossible, even in large celebrity weddings, to have a beautiful and intimate event when the attention to detail also includes focusing on connections of the heart. Just remember Kate Middleton and Prince William’s wedding the following spring: large and grand, yet you could feel the open-hearted intimacy. It’s all about where you put your attention.

If the wedding-planning swirl takes you away from the heart of your relationship, then take a deep breath—(close your eyes and imagine what it would feel like to breathe love into your heart)—and plan your wedding from that centered, heart-full place. “Where your attention goes, there goes your life.”

Love. Listen. Let go.

…with love from Cornelia


(Above text excerpted from my new book, The End of the Fairy-Tale Bride {Volume One} For Better or Worse, How Princess Diana Rescued the Great White Wedding. Available on Amazon.com)