My First Wedding

I began in weddings by accident. I was living in Maui and my roommate was getting married. I sat with her through most of the planning process and so when she asked me to help her on her big day I really didn’t think anything of it. Looking back I think it was one of my most involved weddings. From helping with the florals, custom making her hair piece, to personally driving the couple from the venue to their hotel at the end of the night.

I just thought of this all as friendship duty. Any roommate of a few months would do the same, right? Only when I arrived back to the venue to help clean up did I realise I held a bigger role. There was a group of people waiting for my command, what went where, what was to be kept and what tossed, I realized I was the person with answers. And at the end of it all my roommate’s mom slipped a thank you card into my hand with cash. Inside the note read, thank you with your help coordinating!

To be clear, her wedding was planned by her. I made no decisions, or adjustments, I was merely there to help. If any of you subscribe to the ideas of the personality test known as the Enneagram, this is a great time to explain that I am a classic ‘2’ which is known as the helper. Helping at their wedding scratched a sort of itch I had for serving others. All the jobs I had held at that point in my life (Nanny, tutor, congressional intern (long story)) had an underlying theme of helping others.

It would be another three years before I would actually consider wedding planning as a career, or even a real option for my life. But if it hadn’t been for Reed and Steven letting me help on their big day I wouldn’t be here. So thanks guys.